Coachella: Five mouthwatering reasons why the festival is heaven for vegans

'It's easier to find a cashew smoothie than a Diet Coke'

Coachella is probably more renowned for its highly-Instagrammable sunsets and filter-friendly glitter bug aesthetic than its musical line-up.

But there’s a lot more to the annual Palm Springs, California festival than its flower-crown-wearing, additive-free-cigarette-smoking, snap-happy attendees.

In fact, the hype surrounding this year’s festival is less about its headlining acts - Beyonce, Eminem and The Weeknd - and more about its infamous food lineup, the bulk of which will be vegan, or at least vegan-friendly.

So, what makes Coachella the vegan nirvana it is?

You're spoilt for choice

With a number of food stalls being curated by popular vegan festival Eat Drink Vegan, this year’s animal-product free options extend far beyond a humble bean burger.

It’s iced almond milk lattes at 2pm, cashew cheese nachos at 4pm, tofu ramen bowls at 6pm, alcohol-free cocktails at 9pm... and who could forget the post-dinner green tea soft serve? (Made from coconut milk, obviously.)

If plant-based porn were a thing, Coachella would be the ultimate organic orgy.

It's a far cry from typical festival food

Think of it this way, if Glastonbury is cider and chips, Coachella is kombucha and açaí bowls.

Having been lucky enough to attend last year’s festival, I can confirm that Coachella is a festival in an entirely new food league of its own, far unlike any other grease and mud-laden event to take place on UK soil.

The average Coachella attendee is a healthy hedonist

Perhaps Coachella's vegan-friendly branding is simply a matter of varying intentions.

Instead of looking to indulge their inner hedonist like most British festival-goers, the homogenised Coachella attendee is seeking to enrich their personal brand via green juices, heart-shaped sunglasses, gluten-free legal highs and an endless stream of photos taken by #that #darn #ferris #wheel.

The abundance of vegan food obviously provides the perfect culinary context to their Instagrammable lives, given that a colourful smoothie bowl is undoubtedly more photogenic than a meatball sub.

As a self-identifying Glastonbury veteran (I’ve been almost every year since I was 16), I ventured somewhat naively into the foreign deserted land of Coachella, ignorant to its vegan arcadia identity.

Vegan food is easier to find than 'normal' food

It took me long enough to get my head around the most notable disparities, mostly predicated by the difference in climate (“You mean, it’s 30 degrees until 9pm? And it doesn’t rain? Never?”) and corresponding dress code (“So, I don’t need my ghastly hoodie that I bought when I was 12? Or my wellies? Not even the Hunters?”).

However, the fact that it was genuinely harder to track down a diet coke than a cashew milk smoothie, essentially pallid slop masking as a milkshake, was the most shocking distinction of them all, one that makes Coachella a very convenient experience for the vegans and a far less convenient one for the non-vegans.

Given the abundance of niche ingredients required to produce vegan food - nut milks, seed cheeses, coconut everything - it’s incredibly expensive to eat at Coachella.

To this day I remain scarred by my experience of paying $13 (£9) for an iced coffee because it was spiked with homemade sunflower seed milk.

It has started a trend

When it comes to vegan-friendly festivals, Coachella might be the mothership, but British festivals aren’t far behind.

There’s Wilderness, where you can feast on vegan sushi after an evening meditation class in “The Lunar Space”.

There’s also Standon Calling, Festival No. 6 and Lost Village, all of which have extensive vegan alternatives to the usual festival fare of warm strawberry cider and inexplicably cheesy chips.

There’s even something for holistic thrill-seekers at Glastonbury, where the infamous healing fields are home to tai chi and laughter yoga workshops.

As I found myself descending deeper into this bizarre, rabbit-free rabbit hole, I couldn’t help but Carrie Bradshaw wonder: Are festivals becoming less about letting oneself loose in an intoxicated, music-fuelled haze and more about subscribing to the monastic clean eating culture that has been steadily rising since 2012?

The answer will probably depend on who you talk to, as obviously every festival attendee’s experience will be subjective i.e. one person’s three-day-long detox is another’s long-awaited retox, so to speak.

Regardless of which camp you pitch your tent in, there’s no denying the allure of the vegan vibe at Coachella, if not to absolve oneself in it, then to at least poke fun at it which, as a vegan myself, I feel vindicated in doing so.