How Warsaw became the unlikely vegan capital of Europe
How Warsaw became the unlikely vegan capital of Europe
A city associated with sausage and herring is now a haven for plant-based foods – and Poland’s rightwing politicians aren’t happy, says chef Karol Adamiak
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“Veganism tends to be perceived as a pejorative term,” according to Anna Spurek, the chief operating officer at the Green REV Institute, Poland’s first vegan thinktank. “The meat lobby and interest groups use it to polarise society.” It has been a common refrain of rightwing politicians that veganism is anti-Polish – that it is a similar form of propaganda to the “LGBT agenda” – and that vegans are “insane and detached from reality,” she said.
The right wing extremists can pound sand.
He’s attuned to the fact that what you eat can be a political statement. He once conducted a study in which he interviewed a number of Polish MPs on their diets and tried to map their politics. “The more left-leaning a politician, the more likely they were to have a vegetarian diet and eat international cuisines,” he told me. A 2019 study by Ipsos showed similar results. Polish politicians were asked: “What actions are you willing to take to help fight climate change?” Among politicians from the left, 30% stated that they would give up meat, versus a mere 11% for the right wing Law and Justice party.