I was editing a video at the Ottawa Sun about a month ago (CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO) and I was thinking the entire time, wow finally a bit of change here in Ottawa.
Ottawa Sun photo by Darren Brown – click photo for story
A new street vendor program was launched in Ottawa this year.. Now what is cool about this new street vendor program, it has opened up a certain amount of new spots in the city for unconventional type food carts. Not your regular Poutine and hot dog food carts you usually see in the downtown core… you can now also find a unique variety of street vendors, who are offering MUCH healthier food such as fish and seafood, rotisserie meats, soups, Asian meals and even a Korean Food Cart.
To me, it’s a step in the right direction, it gives healthier options for someone who works downtown and is looking for a quick meal.
Eating paleo usually means you cook your own meals and bring them to work or eat out at the same restaurants that have edible options, likely not 100% paleo but close enough.
It’s hard and we don’t always want to pack our meals EVERYDAY!! Having options is a nice change and I totally welcome it! None of these food carts are 100% paleo, maybe one day we will have a food cart that is paleo like the Caveman truck in Indiana.. OR the Not So Fast! Truck in San Diego OR the Cultured Caveman Truck in Portland, Oregon OR the Outside the Box Food Truck in Renton, Washington … MMMMMMM!
For now this is a good start… and if I had the money, the time and the ability to create fantastic meals IN A TRUCK, like these guys, I would TOTALLY open up my own Primal truck here in Ottawa.. I can cook but I can’t create.. So if there’s a Chef out there in Ottawa who is looking for a new challenge, something different and popular for next years street vendor options ;) hint hint, nudge nudge..
BTW – Ottawa isn’t the only Canadian City that is moving in this direction, others are considering doing adding new street vendors and even pilot projects are starting to pop up such as 2 new Gourmet Food Trucks in the York Region, Newmarket area.. one of which is a LOW Carb Food truck called Wickedly Sinful that will be opening I believe for the Canada Day weekend. They will have gluten free options, using coconut and almond flour but will not be 100% Paleo.
Why I am telling you about street vendors is because one of the vendors from the Gongfu Bao cart in Ottawa(sorry not Paleo or gluten free) was talking in his interview(which didn’t make it to the final cut) about getting his cart up and running using crowd-funding at Indiegogo.
Up until that point I had never heard of crowd funding. So I immediately went to Google to look it up and see what it was. The first thing I thought was, this is brilliant. So many times I have heard of people with amazing ideas, ideas people would love to get behind and just no money to get it off the ground. Crowd Funding is actually putting your idea out there and asking people to help you fund it so you can make that idea a reality.
That’s what this street vendor did, he asked people to help fund the price of his street vendor truck and it helped him raise some money to open up shop truck! I think this is a great idea and I will certainly promote on my blog anyone who is willing to take on the task of opening up a restaurant, starting a paleo/primal business or even creating a movie or TV show that is paleo related. With that being said I would like to start off by promoting this..
The crowd funding for this project opens up on Indiegogo in July. Once I see the link I will post it on my blog!
If you have a project that requires funding, it is Paleo/Primal and you have posted it to a crowd funding site, let me know. I’ll advertise it on my blog! I fully support anyone who is getting the word out and making this world a healthier place, in whatever way that may be!!! Especially if it’s CANADIAN!! Once my new website launches I will post this on there as well!!! More on that coming soon. :)
Healthy Happy & Wise 