What Gold Coast foodie blogger Ellie Bullen learned travelling the world as a vegan
Gold Coast foodie blogger Ellie Bullen is one of Australia’s best-selling cookbook writers, but there’s one thing she doesn’t do that will be a big surprise to fans.
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You might be surprised to learn one of Australia’s best-selling cookbook writers doesn’t own many cookbooks.
Ellie Bullen, the Insta-famous foodie blogger from Palm Beach, prefers a more experimental approach to crafting cuisine.
“I don’t actually cook from cookbooks,” she says. “I’m more of an intuitive cook — I create recipes, I cook what I have in my fridge.
“Most people have to follow a recipe to know what they’re cooking. Because that’s what I do day in day out, I don’t follow recipes.
“When something’s really good I like to write it down and share it with other people.”
It’s true — innovators rarely do things the traditional way, and Ellie is an innovator in every sense of the word.
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The 25-year-old vegan has made an empire out of her Instagram page Elsa’s Wholesome Life, sharing recipes and advice to her 680,000-plus followers on how to nourish the body and soul with plant-based meals, fitness and invigorating experiences.
She was a trailblazer of the food blogging world back when Instagram was in its infancy, beginning her social media page as a hobby while studying a degree in nutrition.
That hobby eventually became a full-time job, allowing her to travel the world while encouraging others to lead a healthier life.
On Tuesday Ellie will release her second cookbook The Global Vegan, a collection of recipes inspired by her globetrotting adventures with her husband.
For the past two years the couple lived in Bali and spent most of that time travelling the world in search of encounters of the delicious kind, and those that would take them out of their comfort zone.
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Ellie says there was plenty of experiences while globetrotting that challenged her attitudes as a vegan.
“In places like the Philippines where there’s poverty and there’s lots of little villages, there’d be one house in the village would have a pig and they’re raising that pig to eat,” Ellie says.
“Occasionally you’ll hear like pigs squealing, and it’s like, ‘oh, they’re killing the pig’. Which is a little bit disturbing, but you’ve got to be open to their culture.
“It opened my mind because to them that’s how they survive. They don’t have the access and money to eat the way we do, they don’t have our privilege.
“It helped me to understand other people’s cultures and not judge.”
Anyone with an allergy or dietary requirement will tell you travelling is tough, especially when there’s a language barrier — but Ellie took a gracious approach to eating in foreign countries.
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“If I was in a small little town in southeast Asia, and things are prepared for you and they bring it out to you and you know it has fish sauce or shrimp paste, you don’t want to offend them,” Ellie says.
“If you walk in and say ‘I have to eat this way’, then that comes across as a little rude. Especially if they’ve already prepared something for you and you say ‘no, I can’t eat that’, then it ends up being wasted.
“Occasionally I had to be more lenient. And it’s not like I’m allergic to it.
“You are there to experience their culture and their traditions and their language. You can’t expect everyone to have the same beliefs and ideals as we do.”
It wasn’t all conquests for cruelty-free fare, though. Ellie regards Indonesia and Mexico as some the most accommodating to plant-based diets.
She says the best way to travel as a vegan is to be prepared and learn some phrases in the country’s language.
“You have to be well researched in local words, have them written down, or have researched places to eat, researched local dishes that are already vegan, then ask some questions,” Ellie says.
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“(Indonesia) has a lot of vegan options. It attracts the health and wellness people, and there’s a lot of expats who live there, a lot of cafes and restaurants are owned by westerners.
“In Mexico we went to Tulum, I was surprised by how good and how delicious and fresh the food was, and how many vegan options there were.
“Places that surprised me — I really liked South Korea. In terms of vegan it’s very hard to find non-dairy milks there. I found that interesting because it is an Asian country and a lot of people are lactose intolerant.
“It was very hard to eat vegan there, they had meat and eggs in a lot of all of their dishes, but I did find some vegan restaurants and did some cooking classes and market tours, and learn how to make kimchi.
“Vietnam was probably my highlight in terms of food, I did a cooking class at an organic farm to learn all about their different greens, we cooked some local dishes, it was really a lot of fun.
“We rode bikes to the farm and then rode to the kitchen to cook the stuff we picked.”
When you do it right, sharing your life online can be a lucrative business. While the internet is an ever-evolving beast, Ellie feels she has job security in today’s disrupted job market.
“It seems a bit high risk, but I don’t think it’s (the internet’s) ever going away,” she says.
“As a safe guard I have a degree in nutrition and dietetics, so I’m a qualified nutrition. I know that if anything were ever to happen, I have that to fall back on and I could move back into a traditional job.
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“But I don’t really see that happening. You’ve just go to stay on top with what the new trends are with social media and technology.”
For now, Ellie is enjoying married life with her husband Alex Watson back in her home patch of the Gold Coast and there’s been no instances of itchy feet yet.
“We’ve been back since about February, we’re loving it so much. We’re near the Farmers Markets, the beach and coffee shops. It’s a nice little area for it.
“We did so much travel over the last year, we were constantly here and everywhere, it can get exhausting.
“We’re pretty happy to be settled here in a nice daily routine.”
The Global Vegan by Ellie Bullen, Published by Plum, $34.99, photography by Ellie Bullen, is out on August 27.
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