If you're thinking about changing your diet and lifestyle for the better by adopting a vegetarian or vegan diet, this is the site for you!
If you’ve ever visited an animal sanctuary you’ll know the joy it can bring to see animals who have been rescued from a life of suffering. Here a young boy shares with us his trip to an animal sanctuary and introduces us to some of the animals he meets there:
On Saturday the 16th May Birmingham hosted the UK’s first ever Veggie Pride event. There were loads of veg stalls, some great entertainment, excellent food and of course - a pride parade!
These belly dancers showed that vegans can shake it with the best of them..
The Scottish Vegans were well represented:
..and the parade was a great success (despite the rain). Vegans and vegetarians of all walks of life made their way through the streets of Birmingham.
Bananas, monkeys, cows, clowns and kids could all be seen sticking up for animals..
Bloco Louco samba band and their Brazilian beats made sure the parade could be heard a mile away and added a lively fun element.
All in all the day was a great way to celebrate being veg!
As National Vegetarian Week comes to close in the UK you can still ensure you’re getting your five a day by heading down to Tibits in Westfield mall or on Heddon St, London.
Not only will you be able to enjoy delicious plant based fare in lovely surrounds, if you print out the voucher below and take a friend you can get two meals for the price of one!
Whoever said there was no such thing as a free lunch had obviously never met the folk at Tibits! This restaurant definitely loves spreading the word about the benefits of a healthy plant based diet…
Unfortunately vegans are still a minority group in many countries no matter how you stack the numbers. While more and more people are adopting a plant based diet for their own health, the lives of animals and the health of our planet we’re still no where near a sizeable sector of the communities we live in. There simply aren’t enough of us.
The longer I’m vegan the more this realisation hits home for me. If only there were more compassionate and ethical people choosing veganism in the world! Helping the animals and the world’s least fortunate would surely be a much easier task.
However, while it might not seem like it at first there are benefits to holding a minority viewpoint. In this post I’ll share some that I’ve been thinking about lately.
One of the greatest lessons being part of a minority group can teach you is empathy. If you’re the sort of person who has always been fairly mainstream in your views and opinions, becoming vegan will give you a taste of what it’s like to be considered different. Your views may well even be labelled as ’extreme’, ‘fringe’ or ‘radical’ in an effort to let you know just how different you are!
While some may view this as a negative, I think holding a minority view gives valuable insight into the plight of others who are also labelled as different in society. Since going vegan I’ve found myself much more able to empathise and identify with groups who are struggling against what many consider normality.
Many people also find that a strange thing happens once you go vegan - you begin to question everything. From the way society is organised to what your core values are to the way you are raising your family - everything becomes food for thought.
This happens mostly because all that you thought you knew about food, animals and the ‘circle of life’ often comes crashing to the ground when you go vegan and find out about the horrors and hypocrisy of animal agriculture. It seems your teachers, parents, government and media were all completely off base with this one - what else could they be misinformed about?
This is of course a good thing. The more people who think critically about the world and our place in it the better it will be. As Thomas Dewer noted:
‘Minds are like parachutes; they work best when open.’
Another benefit of veganism as a minority lifestyle and viewpoint is that it encourages people to get active. Knowing that only a small percentage of people in the world subscribe to the notion that we should not exploit other species for our own ends means that vegans often feel compelled to do more for animals than they otherwise might.
Vegans become more willing to share their views, connect with others, start a blog, organise a fund-raising event or rescue an animal as they know that unfortunately if they don’t, no one else will. The minority status of vegans encourages many of us to reject complacency and take responsibility for the change we’d like to see in the world.
‘Every effort for progress, for enlightenment, for science, for religious, political and economic liberty, emanates from the minority, and not from the mass.’
- Emma Goldman
As you can see, being in the minority is not something to be wary of. Rather, it encourages us to empathise with others more readily, think critically and reject complacency. And while it would be great if veganism was a majority viewpoint, the fact remains that currently there are just simply not enough of us. Instead of lamenting this fact I’d encourage you to use it to your advantage, embrace it and enjoy the benefits, insight and motivation that it brings.
Since joining twitter I’ve connected with lots of lovely vegan and vegetarian folk out there - many of whom have given me much food for thought (thanks followers!). Read on to find out more about twitter and what initially motivated some of the veg community there to go and stay vegan.
If you’re not familiar with this new social networking tool, twitter is basically a form of microblogging that allows you to post comments about what you’re thinking, feeling or doing so long as they’re 140 characters or less.
You might think that 140 characters isn’t really enough to be able to develop a discussion or post anything other other than the most trivial of ‘tweets’ about mundane aspects of your day to day life. But I’ve actually discovered the opposite is true!
The word limit forces you to be concise and eliminate words that serve little purpose.
In our fast paced world it’s also a great way to catch up and stay in touch with people - you might not have time to write a page long email to someone but most of us have time to type a few words and hit update.
Twitter is also great for getting feedback if you have a problem or question. I recently asked people who follow me on twitter why they went vegan and got the following responses:
‘Because of today’s food industry. It’s not natural at all anymore, we torture and kill because of our greed’. @KarlijnTandy
‘Veggie at 13 to annoy mother 
- Vegan at 18 when I had done the research and knew the link between meat and dairy’. @karencooke
‘Because I think we should treat others the way we’d want to be treated - and I don’t want anyone killing me and eating me’. @dogzero
‘Why #vegan? started with climate concerns, researched vegetarianism. Found #veganism to be more logical than vegetarianism’. @veganB12
‘Y?Not PS,TR ,nor even Francione-it was GRamsay&HughFW happymeatBS-made me wake up 2 my own hypocrisy & go vegan- overnight’. @yovegan
‘I couldn’t treat any being the way that “food” animals are treated, or cause any to be treated that way - so I went vegan’. @Beccane
There are many different reasons for going vegan, but the most common all involve compassion as you can see from the sample above. Whether you’re opting out of supporting the animal agriculture industry for your own health, out of concern for animals’ lives or to be kinder to our planet you’re indicating that you’d rather be part of the solution than part of the problem.
For more veg wisdom, news and views sign up to twitter and connect with the many fabulous veg people there. To follow me, click here:
Just wanted to share this brilliantly animated clip that discusses Climate Change with you. Unfortunately it doesn’t go into the impact meat eating has on the environment, but you can read more about that here.
Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo.
Raw cacao is somewhat of an acquired taste, but if you like bitter dark chocolate chances are you’ll like cacao.
Cacao is basically chocolate minus the added sugar and fat! You can buy cacao beans in their whole state or in cacao nibs like those shown here.
If you’re trying to watch your fat and sugar intake but love a chocolate fix every now and then, raw cacao might well be for you! Cacao also doubles as an appetite suppressant and has all the good nutrients and antioxidants that chocolate is reported to have without all the negatives.
If you don’t like cacao straight up you can always use it in the following ways:
It has a great crunchy texture that will liven up your vegan eats and provide added health benefits (as well as a great talking point!).
I just had to post this picture of my latest creation from The Joy of Vegan Baking - it’s German Apple Cake and tastes as delicious as it looks!
I made this as I’ve been trying to use up apples that came in my weekly order of fruit and veg from a local organic company. Although this didn’t use that many apples it was really good and surprisingly light and fluffy (the only egg substitute used is apple sauce!).
This cake is delicious with a dollop of cashew cream and a cup of tea on a Sunday afternoon!
How do you use up your excess apples?
The recent outbreak of swine flu has led to numerous deaths and widespread international panic and media hype. Schools are closing, governments are stockpiling vaccines and people are avoiding crowded places - every effort is focused on how to manage, treat and cure this disease. But like many things in life, few are stopping to address the underlying cause. Why did this outbreak occur? How could it have been prevented..?
In a recent article the Telegraph’s Philip Johnston argues that the way we keep and raise animals is at the heart of the cause of swine flu.
Johnston writes:
‘…it is our proximity to the animals that have sustained us for millennia that makes us so vulnerable to the diseases that can kill us in large numbers. Ever since man stopped being a hunter-gatherer and began to live cheek by jowl with his livestock, he has run the risk of pandemics. Many human diseases originated with domesticated animals: measles and tuberculosis from cattle; smallpox from cattle or other livestock with related pox viruses; flu from pigs and ducks; and whooping cough from dogs.’
Is this just a nasty and inevitable side effect of farming animals for food on such a large scale? Or could the frequency and prevalence of these zoonotic diseases be an indication, an early warning sign, that something is terribly wrong with this picture..?
Swine flu and other diseases that we contract from domesticated animals bring to mind this paragraph from the preface to Old MacDonald’s Factory Farm:
‘Isn’t man an amazing animal? He kills wildlife - birds, kangaroos, deer, all kinds of cats, coyotes, beavers, groundhogs, mice, foxes, and dingoes - by the millions in order to protect his domestic animals and their feed. Then he kills domestic animals by the billions and eats them. This in turn kills man by the million, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative - and fatal - health conditions like heart disease, kidney disease, and cancer. So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases. Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals.’ - C. David Coats
Is there still nothing wrong with this picture?
While I have every sympathy for the families of those who have died in this recent outbreak of swine flu and I understand that preventative measures and precautions are necessary to stop the further spread of disease, I can’t help but reflect on our treatment of the animals we breed for food. As Philip Johnston has written, zoonotic diseases are ‘a heavy price to pay for a pork chop or sirloin steak’.
If you think going vegan means giving up all things good in life, think again! As a donut lover from way back I can attest that Terre à Terre’s churros with chocolate sauce and vodka cherries are more than good - they are worth a two hour train trip to Brighton!
Deliciously light and just sweet enough these churros are vegan donut heaven, especially with the creamy chocolate sauce and tangy cherries. Terre à Terre also serves tapas and a range of tasty plant-based dishes if you fancy something a bit more substantial.
This restaurant is definitely one I’ll return to next time I visit Brighton. It’s well worth the trip!
