Vistor Notes:
Subject: 'Information for vegans'
Posted by Marco on: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 at 10:31 PM PST

Purely vegan restaurants are few in the Netherlands. There is however an organisation of vegans in the Netherlands, that keeps a list of places that serve decent vegan meals: http://www.veganisme.org/?restaurant

Subject: 'General shopping tips'
Posted by Guest on: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 at 06:24 AM PST

In the Netherlands – and the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium – the generic term for a wholefood shop is ‘natuurwinkel’ or ‘natuurvoeding’. The imaginatively named franchised operation ‘De Natuurwinkel’ sells meat as do some independent retailers. However, entirely vegetarian wholefood shops are more common than in France, though less common than in Britain. In Amsterdam two such recommended natuurwinkels are De Aanzet and De Weegschaal (see reviews). Although in English, it sounds something like a nuthouse asylum, the rather foreboding word ‘reformhuis’ – pronounced the same in Germany, but spelled as ‘reformhaus’ – is the term for a health food store, selling remedies and supplements rather than bulk wholefoods. There are Fair Trade shops in Amsterdam, The Hague and elsewhere for ethical chocolate and other stuff carrying the Max Havelaar name. Soya products are easy to find in supermarkets, the most common of which is Albert Heijn, some of whose prices are a bit on the expensive side. Dirk van den Broek might sound like a great name for a used-car salesman, but it is in fact the name of the next most common supermarket chain, whose prices and look are more suitably ‘downmarket’.