Welcome to Chickpea Express!
Welcome to the Chickpea Express blog! I’m Alex, and my boyfriend is Eian. You might know us better from the vegan junk food Instagram account, @chickpeaexpress! Or maybe you’re new, that’s cool too! We’re a vegan couple from the East Coast of Canada (AKA the maritimes), and we love vegan junk food… actually, we just love food, as long as it’s vegan. So we decided to start a blog where we can share all things vegan food with you! Here you’ll be able to find vegan food reviews, restaurant and restaurant menu reviews, brand reviews, recipes and many more of our random food thoughts!
Basically it’s just a place for me to profess my love (or hate, if you’re a mushroom) to all the vegan things we eat and places we visit! We also wanted to create a comprehensive guide on how to eat vegan! Especially if you’re from here in Canada, or NB, where vegan options sometimes look scarce.
And all the pictures you’ll see on our website are my own! This blog has also become a place where I can showcase the excessive amount of nature pictures I’m always taking. Seriously, my phone is filled with 27K pictures of food and flowers.
Background
After over a year of being vegan, we’ve realized that a lot of vegan options are hidden, whether they’re at restaurants or even grocery stores, it’s not always easy to spot the vegan things! Sometimes you have to hack a menu, or venture out of NatVal to look for the accidentally products. We want to relay these vegan hacks to you, so you can spend more time enjoying the vegan options this non-vegan world has to offer, and less time reading ingredient labels. But seriously, you should always read the labels, you just never know when they’re going to slip some milk powder in there.
When we first started sharing our vegan food journey on the internet via Instagram, it was just for fun. I never realized the potential it had! I had no idea so many people would be interested in what we were eating, or that I spend a good chunk of my time scouring grocery stores for vegan finds. But now I realize we need more resources! Here in Fredericton, NB, it seems like there’s not much going on for vegan options. We don’t have a ton of vegan restaurants like some cities do. BUT, if you know where and how to look, more and more vegan goods seem to appear!
I want to make it easier for new and old vegans alike to find vegan options near them. Whether it’s local folks looking for the best vegan option at a non-vegan restaurant, or vegans across the world wondering how the hell to order vegan from Thai Express. Our hope is that by sharing our vegan experience we can make veganism more accessible and sustainable for everyone!! If some newbie vegans can find good vegan eats in a small town on the East Coast of Canada, then anyone can!
What is Vegan?
I know there’s a lot of controversy over what is and isn’t vegan, so I thought this would be a good time to clarify what WE consider vegan. First of all, we pretty much trust anything that’s certified vegan to be vegan – while still reading the ingredients labels of course. An example of a certified vegan product we consume regularly is Dr. Praeger’s California Veggie Burgers! We also consider accidentally vegan finds to be vegan, although I know some people might disagree with this for various reasons!!
Accidentally vegan refers to products that don’t contain animal ingredients but aren’t certified or labeled as vegan. These products sometimes have may contain milk, egg, or fish disclaimers at the end of the ingredients list. Although these products don’t contain animal ingredients, they’re manufactured in the same facility / on the same equipment as products that DO contain these ingredients. A good example of this is Oreos! For the purposes of excluding animal products and exploitation from our lives, we consider these products – whether intentionally or accidentally – to be vegan!
We also recently discovered that even certified vegan products can have a ‘may contain’ warning on them! So this is just another reason why we think accidentally vegan products are just as valid as the vegan certified ones! We think both vegan and accidentally vegan products are suitable for a vegan diet. However, it is important to note that any product – whether it’s accidentally, or certified vegan – that have a ‘may contain’ disclaimer might not be suitable for people with allergies as there is a risk of cross contamination. But as far as a plant-based diet goes, we endorse both accidentally and certified vegan products! Remember, supply & command!!
Disclaimer
We DO accept products for review, and we DO affiliate with companies. However, we will never sell out! We won’t blindly give good reviews to our affiliates or companies who offer us free products! What’s the point of being here if you’re not getting an honest review? Our goal is to give you our honest opinion on the things we try so you can decide if the product is for you or not! Plus I wouldn’t have a very fun time curating a good review for something I didn’t like!! We also wanted to offer an ad-free blogging experience so you don’t have to feel bombarded by advertising when you’re here! So anything you see on the Chickpea Express blog will be our own content or things we personally endorse!
