Can anyone tell me where I can buy vegetarian foods in Edmonton please? My wife is a veggie and is finding it hard to buy reasonably priced food here. It all seems to be pre-packed meals, which work out expensive. We've tried Save-on-foods, Safeway and Canadian Super Store.

If anyone knows where to buy vegemince, which was her main diet I think, that would help a severe culture shock issue!

Thanks!
Ed.

Calgary has a store called Community Natural Foods. There will probably be something similar in Edmonton too. Try the yellow pages under healthfoods.

Best of luck - I have been a veggie since I was 9 years old and am restricted to a limited selection in every place I shop except Toronto. You would think that a life of salads and quiche would yield a slim figure; since moving here I have put on 40lbs. Someone mentioned fat molecules sticking to you on another thread - so true! Just look at the sugar and chemicals in yoghurts, milk and cereals over here. Yuk.

It's tough to be a veggie in Alberta - it's the beef capital of Canada.

Once upon a time I was veggie for a few years, until I had enough of mushroom stroganoff.

Too much dairy in manufactured veggie products, not enough soy.

I have been a vegitarian for many years and have been in Canada now for 3 years and agree that the range of vegitarian foods is extremely limited compared with the UK. I have taken to cooking a lot more home made veggie meals than I did in the UK - although even veggies seem to be expensive as most comes in from the US.

On the bright side I have found that the Co-op and Canadian Superstore do stock veggie burgers -the best I've found recently are called 'Bocca Bugers' and are similar in taste to Quorn - which again is non-existent over here but is available in the US. You can also get Veggie/Tofu Dogs and I did just recently see some veggie mince, veggie chicken burgers and veggie meatballs stocked in the Co-op but can't remember the make. As I am also in Alberta (Calgary) I can appreciate the 'Beef Capital' thing - it really seems that Vegitarianism is not a big thing here.

If you have any willing friends and family in the UK you can always hound them into sending/ bringing food over - my poor parents come loaded with Quorn on their visits (hope there's no Customs Officials looking in!) - also my mum sends me dried Veggie mince from Asda which is actually OK for bolognase, etc once rehydrated.

I think the trick to being a Canadian vegitarian is creativity - both in obtaining veggie foods and coming up with new meal ideas!

I've not seen any Co-op stores yet. I'll check out the phone book to see if there are any in or around Edmonton.

Thanks.
Ed.

you just need to know where to look because the products do exist in Canada because we sell hundreds of them at work. I can imagine it being more difficult outside a major centre like Toronto though. The problem with Quorn as I understand it is that Health Canada considers the healthy risk side effects to be to great and had it withdrawn from the market as did a couple of other countries.

I suppose like with non vegetarian food it is a good excuse to get away from prepacked processed food, and start cooking your own. There is nothing that they can make in a food factory taht you can't make yourself.

If you are in Ontario a good veggie burger is the 'nature burger' made by the home burger chain called Lick's. They don't currently exist outside Ontario though but they are spreading and we are bringing them out to Vancouver when we open our new store there in September.

Drew

The superstore do the full range of tofu types and a load of veggie bangers, burgers, etc - very little in the way of preprepared meals.

Have a look at www.recipeland.com - you'll find a stack of north american style veggie recipes.

Must just depend on which Superstore you go to. Our local one doesn't seem to have very much at all in the way of 'veggie friendly' food. Even the assistants seemed puzzled to know what we were talking about.

What she is really keen to find is some veggie friendly mince (like Realeat Vege Mince) to make chillie, bolognaise, shepards pie etc.. We're still lookin'!...

Ed

Spell it for them! Could be an accent thing. Try to say it the Canadian way next time.

Or perhaps you are right and they just dont sell it!

di d you find the Yves products? They tend to hide it with the fresh veggies ...

Clare

Just a thought - are you asking for "veggie food" - veggie is the generic term for vegetables here.

I'm surprised if you can't find anything at the superstore - the soy cheese is usually with the regular cheese and the veggie weiners, etc are with the tofu.

My husband and myself are also veggies, so I've been looking into this, too. If you follow the link below, you can find a list of all the stores (by province) that stock Yves products:

http: // www.yvesveggie.com/splash.php

So have you found that the vegetarian alternative you are offered is fish? It has happened to me so often that I now expect to eat Salmon at business functions!!

Clare

Thanks for all the replies. We'll definately look out for the Yves products. Looking at their website, however, unfortunately it doesn't look like they offer a vegetarian friendly mincemeat alternative. I guess she could always buy vegetarian burgers and mince them herself!