Wonderful world I discovered in 2017!

I’m very grateful for every day in my life!

2017 has been another year of plenty little steps in all kinds of directions, feeling all life on earth, as a big community and seeing the wonderfulness in each one!

Since I changed my food habits, I wanted to get in contact with all kinds of great people and I definitely had no definition of it, I started open minded. It made me realize quite fast, that all people are great people and that the search wasn’t too difficult. I just had to change the eyes, I was looking thru in order to see all that!

A big inspiration has been the quote of Bob Moawad “The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours - it is an amazing journey - and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins.”

With that in mind, I started to continue taking little steps and here is 2017!

• I started drawing again, something that had passionate me since I was a kid and for which I clearly didn’t take the time!

• I removed myself from organisations with whom I had no connection anymore and increased my involvement with organizations I felt extremely connected.

• I became an active member of the ‘Tables végétales’ promoting actively more vegetables in our diet and organizing 4 times a year a RAW food plant based experience in our house open for everybody to join!

• I started to visit and talk with people at different events where my wife with her company ‘L’envol du colibri’ would participate;

- Veggie World Brussels

- Salon Bio Valériane Namur

- Vegan for sleeping beauty Waterloo

- Marché Vegan Namur

- Planète Zen Hélécine

- Slow Fashion Oxfam Mons

- ...

• Increase my activity in my own vegetable garden.

• My Miracle Morning is not a must, it’s a privilege of my day, and Yoga is a daily part of it.

• Support actions such as Bite Back benefit at Loving Hut Veganerie, Rode Kruis, Charity Water...

• Go out to these lovely places and meet up with lovely people there; Kate Magic @ Raw Ligion in London, Brian & Anna from the Hippocrates Health Institute @ Raw Ligion in London, Tom Leenders @ Eten vol leven Antwerpen, Tobias Leenart @ Veggie World Brussels, Julie Van den Kerchove @ Veggie World Brussels, Joi & Nicholas @ JOi Café California ...

• I decided to increase my involvement in making local plant based life easier, by in a first step becoming Ambassador of Leuven for HappyCow.

• And last and not least, I started my blog, to share and hopefully help light up the best in every one of us! https://rawfoodveganlifechangingexperience.blogspot.be/

I would love to hear about the steps you have taken and/or plan to take (without procrastinating), let’s inspire each other!

Happy New Year!

#peace #goodfood #nature #fruitsandvegetables #freedom #giveupfear #wonderfull2017 #happynewyear #BobMoawad #Tablesvégétales #RAWfood #plantbased #Lenvolducolibri #vegetablegarden #MiracleMorning #Yoga #BiteBack #VeggieWorldBrussels #SalonBioValérianeNamur #VeganforsleepingbeautyWaterloo #MarchéVeganNamur #PlanèteZenHélécine #SlowFashionOxfamMons #LovingHutVeganerie #CharityWater #rodekruis #KateMagic #HippocratesHealthInstitute #Etenvolleven #TobiasLeenart #JulieVandenKerchove #JOiCafé #HappyCow #startblogging

Leuven & Belgium in 2017!

End of the year is always a good moment to reflect, not that you should not do that on other periods of the year, it’s just that it is a moment with clear delimitations.

For me personally, 2017 has been all about love and plant based, now how are things on a more global scale, and how is Belgium, or even more locally for me, how is Leuven doing in all that?

A good reflection, can be provided by HappyCow, founded in 1999 as a public service to assist travelers and people everywhere find plant-based / vegan options and healthy food.

On the website statistics, we see that more and more Vegan Restaurants are added and created every year over the last 10 years;

2017: 1672

2016: 1346

2015: 1128

2014: 812

2013: 604

2012: 481

2011: 380

2010: 451

2009: 296

2008: 133

2007: 518

Of these Vegan Restaurants around the World we’ve;

Africa: 56 listings

Asia: 2180 listings

Australia: 330 listings

Europe: 2533 listings

North America: 2259 listings

South America: 476 listings

So in Europe we see that we really live in a privileged position.

The 10 Top Vegan Cities In The World (Updated Aug 11, 2017),

#1 Berlin

#2 Los Angeles

#3 Warsaw

#4 Taipei

#5 New York City

#6 Singapore

#7 London

#8 Tel Aviv

#9 Portland

#10 San Francisco and Bay Area

Other noteworthy veg-friendly cities around the world:

Bangkok, Thailand

Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam

Kyoto, Japan

Montreal, Quebec

Melbourne, Australia

Paris, France

Prague, Czech Republic

São Paulo, Brazil

Seattle, Washington

Toronto, Ontario

In Belgium we’ve 36 vegan listings.

Ghent: 9

Antwerpen: 8

Brussels: 7

Leuven: 5

Liege: 3

Mechelen: 2

Charleroi: 1

Brugge: 1

More locally for me, in Leuven, we’ve 5 excellent places;

Loving Hut & Loving Hut Veganerie

VegaVerso

T&Ko

Life Bar

Worldwide we see a 24% increase of plant based places compared to 2016, in Leuven we could say that we are at 35% compared to 2016. Since we unfortunately lost Shavt, well, we did not really lost Shavt, it has become a webshop now and is thus not listed anymore on HappyCow.

Of course, on top of that, these are plant-based only, a lot of other places start to propose a lot of plant-based options as well and all indications show that, that list will grow and extend.

Thanks to all of them for making this world a nicer place to live!

Step by step we are getting there, or to say it with the words of Moby; ‘Somehow, humans overturned slavery. Against their own economic interest. And that is so encouraging. It means that even when it’s hard, humans ultimately do the right thing.’

#peace #goodfood #nature #fruitsandvegetables #plantbased #happycow #belgium #leuven #LovingHut #VegaVerso #LovingHutVeganerie #T&Ko #LifeBar #Shavt #moby

Believe so I know or Know so I believe!

It is always a difficult one to answer, do I believe in something and that’s how I know it, or do I know something and that’s why I believe in it?

There have been definitely always both sides of the story for me.

Before I changed my food habits, I didn’t really know anything on the subject.

So what did I believe in to start knowing, or what did I know to start believing in?

I didn’t know anything, I have been just the monkey copying what all the others were doing and assumed that to be right for me.

Now I did believe in something, that there was something way better than what I was eating at that moment.

How did I know out of my believe, what would be better for me?

Well, I started to read books (you can find some references about them over here), now not to know, just to get some direction where to search.

One of the directions I came quite fast across is, increase your vegetable intake and reduce or even remove the processed food.

Increase vegetable intake was quite easy and straightforward. I never heard anything bad from vegetables, never heard someone say, be careful with that vegetable since you might eat too much of them. I heart that some see french fries, chips, dauphine gratin... as vegetables now that direction didn’t make sense for me so left it out.

Removing on the other side the processed food, was quite a challenge. It was everywhere in what I ate. I was used to eating quite some processed food like; bread, pastas, cereals…

Instead of removing all of them at once, I would start with one, so I removed the bread and started to feel the effect it had on me.

By what do I replace the bread? Well, by more vegetables of course, then it would be a win win.

So for lunch, I used to make big nice salads instead of my regular bread.

For the pasta, I start to progressively reducing it, instead of 2 times a week, go to 1 time a week.  I also searched for some alternatives of the pasta and even came across pasta complete made out of vegetables (again a win win situation).

By removing slowly and surely all that processed food out of my daily habits, one thing changed tremendously, I felt way better than I felt before. So I started to know out of my own feelings, what is better for me. I guess majority know the story of ‘doubting Thomas’ and in some way I guess I have some of that in me.

Which was now confirmed by me feeling, so I started to know for myself and since I knew, I surely believe in it.

Since I feel how I feel today, I definitely feel what is good for me and try to continue these small steps in what I believe as the best direction for me.

Today quite often people tell me ‘that change is huge’ I can’t do that!

If I would say that I move 1 km a day, I’m probably today +1000 km of where I originally was. So yes, that walk is huge, no doubt about it. Now why could I do that and someone else couldn’t?

Not because I’m me, not because some call me Mr.extreme… just because I moved step by step, making little changes at a time.

“If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”― Martin Luther King Jr.

What step to take today?

Where to start, well I can’t say it better than Dr. Michael Klaper says it, ‘it’s the food!’

#peace #goodfood #nature #fruitsandvegetables #wholefood #giveupfear #MartinLutherKingJr #stepbystep #removeprocessedfood #increasevegetables #DrMichaelKlaper

Marché vegan de Namur

Une super journée où je préfère laisser les images parler.

http://www.lerevedaby.com/

http://www.lerevedaby.com/

http://www.lerevedaby.com/

http://www.lerevedaby.com/

http://www.lerevedaby.com/

https://www.lenvolducolibri.be/

https://www.lenvolducolibri.be/

https://www.lenvolducolibri.be/

https://www.lenvolducolibri.be/

https://www.happycow.net/

https://www.happycow.net/

https://www.happycow.net/

http://sarahveganbakery.com/

http://www.messagere.be/

http://cestboncatraiteur.com/ / http://greenburger.be/

http://cestboncatraiteur.com/ / http://greenburger.be/

http://cestboncatraiteur.com/ / http://greenburger.be/

http://cestboncatraiteur.com/ / http://greenburger.be/

http://www.gaia.be/

http://www.gaia.be/

http://www.animauxenperil.be/

http://www.animauxenperil.be/

https://www.facebook.com/Vegan-Delight-1515812622066154/

https://www.facebook.com/Vegan-Delight-1515812622066154/

https://www.animalrights.be/

https://govegveganshop.weebly.com/

https://govegveganshop.weebly.com/

 

https://www.facebook.com/lalicorne.net/

https://www.facebook.com/lalicorne.net/

https://www.facebook.com/lalicorne.net/

http://www.seashepherd.be

https://www.naturesauvage.be/

https://www.naturesauvage.be/

http://www.vegetik.org/

#peace #goodfood #nature #lerevedaby #lenvolducolibri #happycow #sarahveganbakery #messagere #greenburger #cestboncatraiteur #gaia #animauxenperil #VeganDelightFoodTruck #animalrights #govegveganshop #seashepherd #vegetik