Holland: Where to Eat the Best Vegan Food, According to Vegans Themselves

From favorflav.com

Going out for vegan food no longer means ordering the salad with bacon bits and goat cheese, minus the bacon bits and goat cheese. Amsterdam offers plenty of choice, but inspired animal-free spots are also springing up like mushrooms across the rest of the Netherlands. Here are our tips, along with those from our die-hard vegan friends.

Amsterdam

Yerba

No burgers or snack food here, but rather elegantly presented plates with little dollops and powders. Aesthetically top-notch, with interesting flavours and great cocktails. This is where you go when you don’t need to watch your spending that evening. The crowd ranges from ultra-hip Japanese visitors to international theatre makers and families from Het Gooi and Amsterdam-Zuid.

Mr. & Mrs. Watson

Vegan cheese is often inedible (sorry), but that doesn’t apply to Mr. & Mrs. Watson. They’re famous for their vegan cheese riffs: they can recreate all kinds, from cumin cheese to cream cheese and goat cheese. And it tastes so good! Dinner and lunch focused on culinary comfort food, plus those cheese boards…

Marit’s eetkamer

A homely, intimate dining room with a changing monthly menu, run by Marit and Gino, who both have a background in fashion. So expect a setting and design that’s been carefully considered, as well as colourful, surprising dishes.

Morris & Bella

This is proper dining out, with linen tablecloths and beautiful tableware, yet still affordable. An extensive wine list and a vegan set menu. Omnivores can also find something to enjoy by ordering supplements.

Men Impossible

At a long communal table, you eat vegan ramen here: incredibly rich and filling, so think twice before you supersize your order. A super-friendly Japanese chef does everything himself, which is why you also need to make a reservation.

Deer Mama

A cheerful spot with vibrant colours and amazing shakes (boozy or not), burgers and fries for your vegan fast-food fix. With the happy message that we’re all welcome in this world—and that we’d better celebrate it with soft serve, too.

Rotterdam

 

Spirit

A light, fresh buffet restaurant where you can serve yourself according to your taste and appetite. Seasonal, with so much choice that you could genuinely sit here eating incredibly well for hours on end if you felt like it. Massaman curry and mango-red-pepper ice cream to finish? Bring it on. There’s also a location in Amsterdam.

De Oude Plek

An old-school-looking Chinese restaurant with a modern twist: a fully vegetarian menu, with plenty of vegan options too. Nostalgically craving the special spring roll from your childhood? Here you’ll find a little of the past, and a whole lot of the present.

Utrecht

 

Gys

With two locations, it’s really booming. Simple, tasty and covering all bases: from high tea to a vegan kapsalon, there’s plenty of choice for everyone! Still the only 100% organic restaurant in the Netherlands, they hope more and more others will follow suit.

Wakuwaku

Festival favourite The Dutch Weedburger is always on the menu here. Grab one before a concert at Tivoli Vredenburg, or go for a delicious lasagne, for example. You can do it all at this colourful, popular spot—and be sure to order one of those incredible cocktails too.

Oproer

Shiitake arancini, ma’am? Yes! Deconstructed tiramisu? Yesss! A sour Berliner Weisse from their own craft beer brewery? Hell yeah! Seriously delicious beers + beer food at this urban brewery with a local focus.

Dordrecht

 

De Kop van ‘t Land 

Many friends had already beaten us to it; they all returned hugely enthusiastic and recharged from a romantic weekend at this beautiful inn in De Biesbosch. Vegetarian and vegan menus available on request, with wine pairings for a little marital bliss; win-win!

Daantje

Sandwiches, salads and approachable main courses at this fully plant-based restaurant. According to many enthusiastic followers, it absolutely had to be included on the list. Still the first and only one of its kind in Dordrecht, it’s a great place to eat all day.

Appelscha

 

Het Volle Leven

Let’s stay in inn territory with this guesthouse, where you can breathe in nature all day long. Then, after a three-course dinner made from produce from their own vegetable garden, you can roll straight into bed—only to roll back out again for the homemade breakfast.

https://favorflav.com/en/new/where-to-eat-the-best-vegan-food-according-to-vegans-themselves/ 

A Short-Term Vegan Diet May Slow Biological Aging

From technologynetworks.com

By Katie Brighton

A month-long vegan diet altered epigenetic patterns associated with aging, cancer, metabolism, and inflammation

People often tout a vegan diet for its health benefits, and research is now shedding light on how avoiding animal products may produce positive biological effects.

 

A new study has found that switching to a vegan diet for just one month can reshape epigenetic patterns associated with inflammation, cell growth, and metabolism, while also slowing biological aging.

Credit: Vanessa Loring/ Pexels

Understanding how diet affects our epigenome 

The diet we follow has a large impact on our health. Dietary strategies are considered one potential intervention for slowing the rate of the molecular changes associated with aging. 

Veganism has been rising in popularity over recent years, with vegan diets being associated with anti-inflammatory effects, improved glycaemic control, and a lower risk of cardiometabolic disease. 

However, the molecular pathways that link a vegan diet to its health benefits are not well understood. 

Environmental factors, like nutrition, can alter the epigenome, which in turn regulates gene expression. As such, epigenetic regulation, including DNA methylation, acts as a molecular bridge between diet and cellular states. 

The epigenome 

The epigenome refers to the chemical modifications that are layered on top of the genome that determine which genes are expressed without changing the underlying DNA sequence. 

To explore how a vegan diet influences health, researchers from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) conducted a randomized clinical trial in which participants followed a standardized diet for one week, then consumed either a vegan or a meat-rich diet for four weeks. 

As weight loss is commonly associated with vegan diets, participants were instructed to maintain their total caloric intake to enable the researchers to isolate the effects of diet composition. 

Genome-wide DNA methylation patterns from the participants were analysed before and after the dietary intervention, with 800,000 methylation sites examined. 

DNA methylation 

Methylation marks on DNA change the spatial conformation of DNA, compacting it to prevent transcription factor binding at promoter regions and therefore suppressing gene expression. 

 The researchers found that after the intervention, 97 sites showed methylation differences between participants on a vegan diet and those on a meat-rich diet. While this suggests that diet has a measurable impact on DNA methylation, the authors noted that substantial epigenetic differences between individuals make it difficult to definitively attribute these changes exclusively to diet. 

They therefore focused on how DNA methylation changed between baseline and trial completion in each group, particularly at methylation sites associated with gene promoter regions. 

The change in diet altered these methylation sites in both diet groups, but the number of sites that lost methylation was higher in the meat-eating group, indicating diet-induced gene activation. 

“Our genes are not our destiny,” said Dr. Jerome Mertens, associate professor of neurosciences at UCSD School of Medicine and co-senior author of the study. “The remarkable finding isn’t simply that one diet outperformed another. It’s that the epigenome responded measurably in just four weeks, showing that our biology is far more dynamic—and responsive to everyday choices—than we often assume.” 

Participants on the vegan diet exhibited greater methylation (gene silencing) at promoter regions associated with cancer, cell stress, and muscle cell proliferation pathways. Genes with anticancer properties were also found to be epigenetically activated in people who had consumed a vegan diet. 

The researchers pinpointed specific signalling pathways that were affected by diet, including Hippo and the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), which were repressed in those on vegan diet, and AMPK and insulin signalling, which were activated in the vegan diet cohort. 

Signalling pathways

Hippo: The Hippo pathway influences cell proliferation and differentiation, tissue regeneration, organ growth and embryogenesis. Dysregulation of the Hippo pathway can contribute to cancer, cardiac diseases, and immune dysfunction.

mTOR: mTOR signalling is a central regulator of cell metabolism, growth, proliferation, and survival. It is commonly dysregulated in cancer.

AMPK: Signalling via the AMPK pathway plays critical roles in regulating growth and metabolism. AMPK can be dysregulated in many chronic diseases, including diabetes, obesity, and cancer.

Insulin: Insulin signalling activates a complex network of further signalling cascades, which affect multiple physiological process, including glucose uptake and synthesis, gene expression, protein and DNA synthesis, and apoptosis.

These findings illustrate potential mechanisms underlying the health effects of vegan diets, which is supported by prior research that indicates that plant-based diets are associated with reduced cancer risk. 

A vegan diet alters biological aging 

Epigenetic aging clocks are algorithms that use DNA methylation data to estimate a "biological age" of cells. These clocks compare biological age and chronological age to provide a measure of health. 

Two clocks designed to estimate age-related health outcomes, PhenoAge and GrimAge, revealed that a vegan diet appeared to slow the pace of biological aging, estimating differences between biological and chronological age of 1.7 years and 0.53 years, respectively.

It is worth noting that the small cohort size of 48 participants prevented statistically significant between-group comparisons of PhenoAge and GrimAge acceleration. 

However, analysis with the Blood&Skin clock, which was optimized to predict chronological age, indicated that the vegan diet intervention may have accelerated aging. 

“These findings reinforce the idea that not all measures of biological aging capture the same biology,” said Mertens. “The clocks associated with disease risk and overall health consistently pointed in the same direction, suggesting the dietary changes were influencing pathways tied to health rather than simply the passage of time.” 

Diet also changed the distribution of immune cells 

Changes in immune cell distribution can indicate physiological changes relevant to inflammation and aging, so the authors used the epigenetic data to study how the immune system changed in response to diet.  

DNA methylation is cell-type-specific, so epigenetic data from blood samples can be used to infer the proportions of different immune cells present. 

The researchers found that the vegan diet appeared to shift the immune system towards a less inflammatory state. Levels of CD4+ T cells, which regulate immune responses, were significantly higher in people who ate a vegan diet, and levels of pro-inflammatory neutrophils were lower compared to the meat-eating group. 

"Inflammaging" refers to the hypothesis that chronic inflammation accelerates biological aging. The finding that vegan diets might reduce inflammation by increasing CD4+ T cell levels suggests that dietary interventions could slow this process and potentially delay age-related diseases. 

The authors stress that as the study had a small sample size and short duration, larger participant cohorts and longer dietary intervention periods are needed to fully understand the impact of the observed epigenetic changes and the influence of diet on biological aging and health. 

“Our study adds to growing evidence that nutrition can shape biology at the molecular level,” said Dr. Max Storz, a clinician and researcher from the University of Freiburg Medical Center and co-senior author of the study.

“The next step is to understand whether these epigenetic changes persist over time and whether they translate into meaningful improvements in long-term health. That will require larger clinical studies, but these findings provide an important foundation.” 

Reference: Karbacher L, Mertens J, Kowarschik S, et al. A vegan diet epigenetically modulates inflammatory pathways and biological aging: Genome-wide DNA methylation analysis of a one-month isocaloric vegan versus meat-rich dietary intervention. MedComm. 2026;7(8):e70899. doi: 10.1002/mco2.70899  

Original story: University of California San Diego 

This article is a rework of a press release issued by the institute named above. Material has been edited for length and content.

https://www.technologynetworks.com/tn/news/a-short-term-vegan-diet-may-slow-biological-aging-415979

Recipe: easy Thai vegan curry

From favorflav.com

By Delilah Warcup-van Eyck

Ingredients

1 packet of Garden Gourmet Incredible Mince (200 gr)

2 tablespoons peanut oil

1 teaspoon Mae Ploy green curry paste (or to taste if using less spicy)

300 ml vegetable stock

1 large carrot, sliced

1/2 zucchini, cut into strips or cubes

1/2 red pepper, in rings

Coriander, few sprigs, chopped

Basil, few sprigs, torn

Jasmine or Pandan Rice for 2, steamed or boiled 

We were already fans of the Dutch Weedburger, the Beyond Meat Burger is achieving great success, and in the supermarket the choice of meat substitutes is becoming wider and the products are getting better. No one can bury their head in the sand anymore, our kitchens are increasingly open to variety, and we were happy to try the latest brainchild of the makers of Garden Gourmet.

It's called Incredible Minced Meat, is completely plant-based, and the funny thing about this variant is that it can be kneaded like minced meat is. Unlike many plant-based minced meat substitutes, this is raw and not pre-fried, so you can use it in more directions yourself. We tasted it as balls with sriracha 'mayo' and also Mexican spiced in a taco.

Do it yourself

For my Asian recipe, I just fried it loosely in the pan. It takes some getting used to that it does turn brown on the outside but remains pink on the inside; Because it looks like raw minced meat, I got so fooled that I was really waiting for it to cook and discolour on the inside. Keep stirring quickly. I didn't season the minced meat further, because I was going to pour a lot of spicy broth of Thai curry over it. I always use Mae Ploy's green curry paste: super spicy, a teaspoon is almost always enough, so you can use it endlessly. The taste is not very salty and you can increase it yourself with soy sauce, fish sauce or just salt.

Conclusion

This was a very tasty meal! It wasn't until I took the picture that the penny really dropped, that this was not only vegetarian but even vegan. Recommended, absolutely.

This is how you make it

• Heat the oil over medium heat in a frying pan.
• Fry the Incredible Minced Meat while stirring with a spatula until brown and cooked, for about 8 minutes.
• Remove from the pan to a deep plate and set aside.
• If necessary, pour another teaspoon of oil into the frying pan and add the curry paste.
• Sear for 30 seconds and add the stock while stirring gently.
• Bring to the boil, add the carrot and zucchini and heat briefly.
• Spoon the minced meat over the rice (divided over two deep plates), and add the vegetables from the pan.
• Carefully pour the remaining stock into the plates, and garnish with the red pepper and fresh herbs.

https://favorflav.com/nl/recipes/vegan/recept-easy-thai-vegan-curry/