Hi there,

I'm not having much luck on Google for this one. As someone who follows a vegan diet, I have no problem cooking most of our food from you know, ingredients. But occassionally we like to use vegan prepared foods - veggie burgers, vegan pizza, meat-free "chicken nuggets" etc.

Is anything like this available in grocery stores in Basel?

Thanks in advance.

Sarah

As you know there is a difference between "Vegan","Veggie" & "Chicken" yes I am being what exactly do you want.....Switzerland provides "prepared foods" for all.
If you really want to eat Vegan I would seriously suggest stick with..... from you know, ingredients

Thanks. Just using terms generically.

Great to know - appreciate it.

Quorn do a range of products that can be found in Migros and CooP (in the meat section ) but they are vegetarian and not vegan. I used to buy the plain non fatty ones and add my own spice mix to it at home. The non plain ones are layered with too much fatty stuff for my taste.

I have cut Quron out of my diet as I can't be asked eating processed cräp.

Thanks for your reply - we have Quorn here also but alas you are right, it's not vegan. Agree on the processed stuff. We have some excellent veggie (vegan veggie) burgers which are real vegetables, very little soy and very good. Just wondering if I'll be able to find anything like that. Also, there's a very good vegan nut cheese made in NYC that is excellent, but it's only sold in the US now. Perhaps there is something similar.

Thanks for your thoughts!

*nod* I know what you mean about "things from home lacking"... One year I bought tofurky (http://www.tofurky.com/) for Christmas... I also sometimes miss the vegan canned soups and pizzas.... bulk food, carob bars, etc.
However, I do find Switzerland is a bit more ahead of the game in the area of "healthfood stores" compared to Germany. There are 2 really wonderful ones here in Chur... I have yet to venture into some of the other cities but I'm interested to try some of the things they have here

COOP and Migros have both vegetarian and vegan products (there is a labelling mechanism to tell the difference; be careful, most is veggie and not vegan).

For specialty stuff, there are 3 "reformhaus"'s around Basel that I'm familiar with, one near the Marktplatz tramstop called Vital Punkte, one between Marktplatz and Barfusserplatz (Mueller's Reformhaus) and there is supposed to be a larger one near Schuetzenhaus (park), but I'm not clear where it is.

If you have a car, there is an even bigger place in Loerrach.

None compare in size to similar stores in the US, but all are friendly and will order stuff as you need (Seitan, etc). They are also relatively expensive, but so is life in Switzerland.

best,
-tony

Thanks Puhutes and Tony - really appreciate the insights. The specialty foods are more expensive than non-specialty foods here also (relatively speaking). I'm hoping by avoiding meat we can keep our food bills reasonable even with the vegan specialty stuff. Great to know some of the store names - gives me a good place to start!

Can I just ask why quorn isn't vegan? I thought it was made from a fungal mould and assumed this would be treated just like mushrooms. Just curious

Egg in it.

Hi terramundi - from the Quorn site:

Because a small amount of egg white and milk ingredients are used in making Quorn products, they are not appropriate for a vegan diet.

HI THERE!
So I am new to this country and did read some information about vegan products available here, but was wondering if products like Silken tofu, soy cheeses, tempeh, protein powder, and nutritional yeast flakes are available at the stores mentioned in Basel? I live in the typical Swiss part of the country where local cheeses and animal products are HEAVILY available, but not much variety for a lonely vegan like myself, so to stick to my vegan lifestyle, it is going to require a bit of traveling and just wanted to check before making the 3 hr drive to Basel if it will be worth it.

Thank you.

There's a list of vegi/vegan shops here. (including online shops)

You can order tempeh from the Reformhaus near Marktplats, it usually takes 3-5 days. It's ok, a bit pricey though. I usually my tofu at Reformhaus in Weil am Rhein, there you can get smoked tofu for about 1,5 euros a piece, which is a great deal. They have pretty good selection there, I'm not vegan so I'm not sure what they have, but it's surely worth checking out!

http://www.futur-natur.ch/Webshop/ws_tofu.htm

Here's a link to small place in Frutigen where they make tofu, tempeh and seitan.

I believe that all chicken nuggets are meat free.

But, seriously, if you're thinking of trying to save money when food shopping then you need to forget your ideas of processed food as it's not really the done thing here. You need to think more in terms of seasonality.
Most vegetables and fruits and nuts are much cheaper than usual in season and in Autumn there's a wonderful range of mushrooms available.

Thank y'all so much for the tips on where to shop!

Go happy!