Category: Veganism (Page 1 of 3)

Veggies is Hiring – Join our Co-operative

Veggies Catering Campaign is hiring! 

Picture of Veggies Garden superimposed with text "We are hiring"

We are a workers co-operative, promoting veganism and supporting campaigns for human and animal rights, environmental protection and social justice since 1984. We produce our own ethical burger mix, which we use to sell burgers at events and festivals. We offer private catering, as well as supporting protests and campaigns with food at the front line. We are non-hierarchical and supported by a team of volunteers. 

The role:

  • 8 hours a week 
  • Pay is £10.89 per hour
  • Flexible schedule
  • Based at the Sumac Centre, Forest Fields, Nottingham
  • The main part of the role is admin based – keeping the finance records up to date, putting money in the bank, making purchases of stock and equipment, and any other relevant admin tasks. 
  • The second part of the role is loading the van for events as and when required, and also take a share in driving.

The ideal person:

  • Vegan
  • Interested in environmental, social and animal rights issues
  • Able to use Gmail, Google Sheets and Google Documents effectively. 
  • Some experience of book keeping would be nice but not mandatory as we can train you.
  • Some experience of manual handling
  • There are many opportunities to additionally volunteer at festivals (Glastonbury, Green Gathering, etc), and represent Veggies at protests and rallies. It would be a bonus if the successful applicant had an interest in going to these events. 

To apply:

  • Email at us at info@veggies.org.uk, with ‘Veggies is hiring’ as the subject line. 
  • Tell us how you fit the criteria, and why you want to work for Veggies. 
  • Apply by 24th October

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https://twitter.com/veggiesnottm/status/1705323011237175709

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Samosas for Social Change? Food Activism and Media Ecologies

By Eva Giraud

on

The title of this blog is a tribute to local Nottingham collective Veggies Catering Campaign, who – along with Brighton’s Anarchist Teapot – are two of the UK’s most well-known ‘campaign caterers’. This post isn’t focused purely on Veggies, though, but a long-standing food-activism campaign that some of their members have been involved in, which draws together some interesting issues about how we conceptualise protest media and what the political significance of these conceptualisations is.

In general I want to highlight three things: The first is the difficulty of engaging in what Pollyanna Ruiz (2014) describes as ‘polyvocal’ protest, or mobilizing behind a range of interrelated issues as opposed to campaigning on a single-issue basis; the second is a body of work that explores how activist media practices can be understood as information ecologies (e.g. Treré 2012). The third, and final, thing I’m going to discuss relates to work by Anna Feigenbaum who (both individually and with Frenzel and McCurdy 2013) expands the definition of media beyond conventional communication platforms, in order to explore how other material entities can express (or sometimes constrain) meaning, from the symbolic use of tents in occupations of public space to the repressive use of tear gas to silence dissent. The work engaged in by these researchers has helped me to think through both the conceptual and tactical significance of issues I’ve looked at in my own work, in relation to food activism.

Movements local to me, such as Food Not Bombs and Nottingham Animal Rights, have regularly used food to draw attention to interconnected issues. There are, for instance, regular ‘free food give-aways’ in Nottingham city centre, where vegan food is cooked and served outside fast food outlets as part of long-standing anti-McDonald’s campaigning. What I want to reflect on in a little more depth is how the role of food can be conceptualised in these contexts, as a tool for polyvocal protest.

Veggies’ own What’s Wrong with McDonald’s? pamphlet is still distributed today as a defiant marker of the anniversary of the McLibel trial, and for the past twenty years has worked in conjunction with the McSpotlight website to articulate the series of problems drawn together by McDonald’s. While the pamphlet succinctly listed a range of issues – including worker’s rights, animal welfare, environmental destruction, littering, exploitative/misleading advertising, and unhealthy food – the website provided an in-depth archive of evidence to flesh out these concerns (see Pickerill 2003), with ‘mirrors’ in other countries to avoid fear of libel. The site also contains PDFs of the pamphlet in multiple languages, to enable people to develop local campaigns of their own.

It more recent times, however, the campaign has faced difficulties in maintaining its polyvocal dimensions. Though McDonald’s was initially a useful emblem for drawing together issues and problems, this had its downsides; while the campaign tried to make clear it wasn’t just McDonald’s that was the problem, but what it stood for, the sight of people flyering outside of the restaurant can lead to assumptions that the restaurant is the main target. This is especially problematic in light of McDonald’s recent emphasis on ‘local’, ‘organic’ produce in its marketing campaigns within the UK, which make it seem like any criticisms have been addressed. Though this has been responded to with a new McGreenwash pamphlet, pamphleteering in a specific site doesn’t always make criticisms of the restaurant resonate with broader criticisms of the agricultural-industrial complex or of the commercialisation of public space. In contrast, though McSpotlight does have the capacity to elaborate on connections between different issues in depth, twenty years after the site’s initial buzz, the website tends to be used as a helpful archive of information for activists rather than a platform to communicate with publics.

Food, however, can be a way of overcoming the limitations of both the pamphlets and web-media. Food sharing, for instance, is useful in de-familiarising commercial rhythms in ways that pamphlets alone might not. Quite often if you’re distributing political pamphlets this just seems part of urban rhythms, something to ignore in the same way that you might ignore commercial flyers. Food give-aways, in contrast, evoke surprise that people are giving something away within a commercial space without trying to sell the product, which often prompts further questions and creates space for dialogue. While I have reflected on these campaigns in the past, in a range of contexts (e.g. Notts Free Food 2010, Giraud 2015), I’ve struggled to articulate exactly what food’s value was in more concrete terms. Yes, different tactics reach different audiences (with specific web-platforms appealing to different sectors of the activist community, whist pamphleteering directly engaged with consumers) and, yes, food distribution was a good way of breaking down barriers and chatting with people, but I felt there was something more to say.

When listening to Feigenbaum’s research at the last SoME seminar, however, I reflected that I was drawing artificial distinctions between food sharing (which I saw as a practice) and pamphlets, websites and social media (which I saw as communication). I also often found myself treating these things separately, and reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of each platform, or how they could work together to compensate for these limitations, rather than taking the more holistic approach that is offered by understanding these practices as being interrelated (as in Treré’s work). If, instead, food is – firstly – understood as media in its own right and, secondly, situated as part of a complex communication ecology, then it becomes possible to grasp its role, and protest potentials, more clearly. In the context of the give-aways, food can be understood as a media which has affordances that emerge through its relationships with the other media involved. To clarify what I mean by this, burgers served in McDonald’s clearly convey different meaning to the burgers cooked outside, which – due to their location, being free and being vegan – communicate oppositional ideas about public space, commercialisation, and animal rights (to give a few examples). The specific resonances the veggie burgers assume, moreover, shift depending on their relation with the other media involved in the campaign, which doesn’t just include the pamphlets that are being distributed but the way the stall is arranged, who is present and what discussions are had.

Thinking through food’s role as part of a broader media ecology, of on- and offline communication practices, is a helpful way of reflecting on the different affordances and constraints of the varied platforms being used, and how tinkering with these relationships could alter these affordances to reach new audiences or make communication more effective. Food, in this context, can be seen as a powerful communicative tool, which both expresses critical meaning, and enacts new – if temporary – forms of social relations. Whilst, in themselves, pamphlets, websites, social media, burgers, or verbal discussion might have their limitations, by refusing to isolate these media and understanding them as part of a complex ecology of communicative practices, the value of different tactics for polyvocal protest can become clearer. The theoretical framings of media discussed here, therefore, are not just helpful for conceptualising activist media practices, but for assessing the context-specific value of different media for communicating complex, interrelated, issues to diverse publics.

Farming for a Future

Farmer Jay herd at Hillside BBC


News in 2017 that the Vegan Society is working with Bradley Nook Farm in Derbyshire to transition from beef to vegan organics was the icing on the (vegan) cake of all our years of campaigning. It shows the great value of networking both within the vegan movement and with movements beyond in the wider world. 

Veggies met up with farmer Jay when catering at Northern Green Gatherings at his inherited family farm. The farm near Ashbourne, Derbyshire is also one of a number of locations used on rotation for Earth First! Gatherings. As vegan campaign caterers Veggies has catered for EF! since the very first gathering in 1991, helping in a small way to maintain a vegan ethos in the grass roots eco-action movement.

It was through the involvement of long term Veggies member Cathy in another Vegan Society project (hospital catering) that the opportunity​ came about to mention in conversation the potential to veganise Jay’s farm. The rest is, as they say, history, and hopefully a turning point in the transition of many more livestock farms to the compassionate and efficient farming of Food for a Future.

Hosting camps & gatherings can provide a useful income stream for vegan landowners. We will actively encourage the gatherings at which we cater to consider holding events at Bradley Nook Farm. As participants in the Northern Green Gathering (NGG) held there each August, we will urge the organisers to encourage other caterers at the event to honour the compassionate stance of the farm by highlighting vegan options. We know this to be a popular position to take as Nottingham Green Festival has declared a fully vegan ethos from 2017.

Meanwhile Jay has already discussed plans for his new ventures with Derbyshire Dales District Council.

He said: “We’ve got a huge range of brick buildings on the farm which are unused. We’re hoping to turn those into a vegan restaurant, a vegan teaching kitchen and accommodation for people who would like to come and help on the vegetable growing. A vegan holidays sort of thing.” (Derby Telegraph)

STOP PRESS – July 2020Bradley Nook Sanctuary  – the UK’s first Refarm’d partner farm, for local ethical production of organic oat milk.

Since 1984 Veggies Catering Campaign has saved hundreds of cows by simply selling, with vegan attitude, possibly half a million Veggies Burgers. All those lives were unknown to us, but the path has led to 73 individual living, breathing lives that you can now meet at Hillside Animal Rescue:

 

Farmer Jays Cows at Hillside The cows are now being cared for by Hillside Animal Sanctuary in Norfolk which is fundraising for their keep

Please sponsor Hillside to help the cows – please click here or telephone the Hillside Cow Rescue Helpline on 01603 736200 (9am to 10pm).Please Help the Cows

or by bank transfer donation to…
The Co-operative Bank
Account No: 69668302
Sort Code: 08-92-99

 
Or by post to Hillside Animal Sanctuary
Hill Top Farm, Hall Lane, Frettenham, Norwich, NR12 7LT

Vegetarian Farmer Jay article in Vegan Trade Journal
Read the full story in the Vegan Trade Journalfree download here
 

Visit freefromharm.org to read the inspiring stories of other former meat & dairy farmers that became vegan activists.

The story of Farmer Jay is also featured in / at / on:
 

 

BBC News 13 June 2017

A vegetarian farmer has given his herd of cows to an animal sanctuary to protect them from the slaughterhouse.

Jay Wilde, 59, who farms in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, sent [73] cattle to a Norfolk rescue centre as he could no longer bear to send them to be killed.

Mr Wilde, a vegetarian for 25 years, grew up herding cows and took over the family farm when his father died.

“Cows have good memories and a range of emotions. They form relationships. I’ve even seen them cry,” he said.

“It was very difficult to do your best to look after them and then send them to the slaughterhouse for what must be a terrifying death.”

The Hillside Animal Sanctuary near Frettenham said 30 of the cows are pregnant and all the animals “would live out their lives essentially as pets”.

Founder, Wendy Valentine, said Mr Wilde is not the first farmer to have donated his herd.

She recalls a couple who “could not bear to continue dairy farming and kept their cows as pets with the help of the sanctuary”.

Mr Wilde, who switched from dairy farming to organic beef production on the death of his father in 2011, said he always wanted to give up animal production because he “couldn’t believe it was right to eat them”.

He believes dairy farming is particularly hard because calves and cows would often become distressed on separation.

“I’m relieved to have made the decision to no longer farm animals, something which I always found quite upsetting,” he said.

His brother-in-law told him he was “absolutely insane” to give away cattle which could fetch up to £40,000 at market.

He said “a lack of imagination” had previously stopped him switching to arable farming.

Mr Wilde will now be running a vegan organic market farm supplying garden produce without using animal products or fertilisers.

 


Farmer Jay Independent
 
 
A herd of cows from the East Midlands will be mooing a sigh of relief thanks the kindness of their owner, vegetarian farmer Jay Wilde who has sent them to live out their days in an animal sanctuary.

 Leaving their old cattle sheds at Bradley Nook Farm in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, the 59 cows were rehomed in Norfolk at the Hillside Animal Sanctuary on Monday.

A vegetarian for a total of 25 years, Mr Wilde told The Times that he found it “very difficult to do your best to look after them and then send them to the slaughterhouse for what must be a terrifying death.”

“I’m relieved to have made the decision to no longer farm animals, something which I always found quite upsetting,” Mr Wilde said.

“Cows have good memories and a range of emotions. They form relationships. I’ve even seen them cry.” 

The herd, worth £40,000 at market, will avoid the abattoir to join the sanctuary’s 300 cattle and 2,000 horses, donkeys and ponies. Mr Wilde has kept ten as “pets.”

The founder of the sanctuary, Wendy Valentine, said Mr Wilde’s cattle could now enjoy their full 25-year lifespans rather than reaching the slaughter age of two to three years. 

The sanctuary was started in 1995 to draw attention to the effects of factory farming and needs to raise a minimum of £5m per year to continue to care for the animals. 

The donation was organised by the Vegan Society and Mr Wilde now plans to farm organic vegetables free of animal products and fertilisers to sell in the flourishing vegan market. 

Tom Kuehnel, the Vegan Society’s campaign officer, told The Independent: “Jay is a real pioneer, which we hope will inspire other farmers to move towards more compassionate and sustainable farming methods that don’t involve animals.”

… full story …

Vegan Fivers

Keep old fivers in circulation and support the vegan community


You will have heard that the new five pound notes contain tallow, a rendered form of beef or mutton fat.

This is unacceptable to millions of vegans, vegetarians, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and others in the U.K.   A petition at calling on the Bank of England to remove tallow from bank notes had received over 134k signatures (at 7th Feb’17)

The Bank of England is treating the concerns with “utmost seriousness” and state that they are looking for “potential solutions”.

However, in all other areas where animal products appear in unexpected places we can make a choice to choose alternatives, but the withdrawal of the old fivers by 5th May 2017 will leave the vegan community & others with no option in handling ‘meaty’ fivers.

The solution is to draw as many old fivers out of general circulation ourselves and retain them to spend amongst our own community, at vegan cafes, shops, festivals, fairs & markets. 

[Vegan Fiver labels here]

How you can help:

  • Keep your old fivers and only spend them at vegan (or veggie) businesses – ask them to do the same.
  • Ask for old fivers when getting change from other businesses.
  • Ask friendly local shops, your post office, cafe, pub, transport provider etc to ‘sell’ you as many old fivers as they can save.
  • Sticker your fivers (see below) to encourage this initiative.
  • Spend your ‘vegan fivers’ in a different veggie / vegan place each time to encourage them to support the campaign.
  • Post pictures of your ‘vegan fivers’ being spent. Hashtag #veganfivers. Linkback here.
  • To add your ideas to support this campaign contact us by email, on twitter, or facebook.

We will list here any places enthusiastically accepting ‘vegan fivers’, including:

To be added to this list contact us.

We also hear that the Rainbow Cafe in Cambridge refuses to take the new £5 note.
 

After 5th May they  won’t be Bank of England fivers, they’ll be ours, worth £5 to each other, so let’s keep using them, at least until such time as we are given an ethical alternative.

However, even after  5th May,  Bank of England notes retain their face value for all time, so can always be cashed in at most banks, and Veggies Catering Campaign will always accept them in any quantity at the many vegan festivals, markets & fair, and other events on our diary, all over the UK.

Where have you spent your Vegan £ivers?

Tell us on Twitter or Facebook.

 


We have designed (removable) stickers that can be used to encourage the people to keep the ‘meat-free’ fivers in informal circulation. You could try to print from the downloads versions (see below), if the formatting doesn’t work, do-it-yourself with similar text to this:

Vegan £iver

Spend this £5 at a vegan market, store, cafe, festival or fair.

When given or received as change consider it to be a vegan voucher

For all life on earth – the future is vegan

http://www.veggies.org.uk/2017/02/vegan-fivers/

We are putting a sticker with  the above text on the back so as to :

  • not cover the serial number on  the front
  • not cover the watermark
  • not cover the Queen (no need to cause unnecessary offense or face treason  charges!)

To draw attention to the details on the back we have these small stickers on the front:

Vegan £iver

P.T.O for details

Downloads

Artwork for stickers for back of fivers : .odt (word format) / pdf
For 21 per sheet 63.5 x 38mm Avery Labels (or equivalent).

Artwork for stickers for front of fivers (2 per fiver) : .odt (word format) / pdf

For 65 per sheet 38.1 x 21.2mm Avery Labels (or equivalent).

If these sticker formats don’t work for you, you could print onto plain paper & use Pritt Stick, or other vegan-friendly gum.

… Or we can send you labels for the cost of printing & posting them:

    • Postage (once) 73p p&p

Annoyingly once you have selected ‘postage’ (above) you will be jumped to the top of the page. Sorry about that. Please then scroll back here to order the labels (below).

  • Labels for 21 Vegan Fivers x 25p (adjust order for number of sheets required)

Beyond meat: The end of food as we know it?

We should not feed plants to animals for meat, cheese, milk & eggs … we should use plants to actually make them!

The Giuseppe program from Chile’s Not Company (NotCo) are replicating animal ingredients, but entirely based on plants.

A group of Chilean scientists are on a mission to change the way that we make food and reduce the impact of animal faming on the environment in the process . The researchers have set up a company that uses artificial intelligence to find a way to replicate animal-based products like milk, yoghurt, cheese and mayonnaise, using plant based ingredients.

Listen to this exciting report 18mins40″ in to this Science in Action program from BBC World Service and read more:meet-the-worlds-smartest-food-scientist-guiseppe.

Talk to Al Jazeera – Beyond meat: The end of food as we know it?

Published on Feb 6, 2016

With the latest breakthroughs in artificial intelligence a whole new concept of food may soon radically change what we eat. And at the same time, some experts believe, it could reduce global warming.
No longer based on animal ingredients, this is a food entirely based on plants – although it looks and tastes like the classic food based on ingredients derived from animals.

This is not a new idea, it has been around for about 10 years.

But the breakthrough has been delayed, perhaps one of the reasons is that many consumers still prefer locally produced food, they want to trust the supply chain, and not simply depend on big manufacturers.

However, a group of young scientists in Chile are working on alternatives for a sustainable and meatless future.

Commercial engineer Matias Muchnick and Harvard research associate Karim Pichara are two of the founders of the Not Company.Together with biochemist Isidora Silva they are developing new plant-based food and are determined to bring it to people in their local market.

Part of what motivates them is what they consider to be the biggest drawback of classic animal farming: It requires massive amounts of land and it affects global warming.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, livestock contributes both directly and indirectly to climate change through the emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.

Livestock is also a major driver of deforestation, desertification, as well as the release of carbon from cultivated soils. Overall the livestock sector is contributing 2.7 billion tonnes of CO2 emission according to the UN.

“When you get behind the scenes of the food industry, you don’t like what you see. There is a lot of things that we should be knowing… but we are blindsided by a whole industry that is making it really hard for us to see what we are really eating,” says Matias Muchnick.

The main scientist of the Not Company team is a computer, an artificial intelligence algorithm programmed to become the smartest food scientist in the world.

It uses deep learning parameters to understand food at a molecular level, helping the team to deliver tasty and affordable nutrition while using less water, less land, less energy, and without the need to cultivate harmful bio systems like animals.

It’s a complicated process but it’s designed to understand human perception of taste and texture which allows it to suggest clever recipes for sustainable and tasty plant-based foods. And it even understands the availability and use of resources for every single plant in the company’s database.

“We want people to eat better, but without even knowing, that’s the main objective of the Not Company,” Muchnick says.

But does the new model of food production really work? Will it be popular among consumers? What does it mean for the future of food? Are we at the tipping point of a food revolution?

The team behind the Not Company talks to Al Jazeera to discuss their work, their goals and their vision for the future of the food industry.

 

Joan Court R.I.P

Joan Court & DarrenWe are sad to bring you the news of Joan Court‘s death this month. She died very peacefully, her cats around her. She was ninety seven.
 
Joan’s Funeral will be on Wednesday 14th December at 12.45 pm in Cambridge City Crematorium, Huntingdon Road, Cambridge CB3 0JJ

 It will be followed by a party to celebrate Joan’s life at Mill Road Baptist Church, 178 Mill Road, Cambridge, CB1 3LP Veggies will be providing food and drink but it is strictly non-alcoholic!
 
All Joan’s friends are warmly invited. If you are able to come, please email JoanCourt74@gmail.com.
 
Joan requested donations instead of flowers, to be shared equally between Animal Aid and Hunt Sabs.There will be collection boxes at the party.

 It would be lovely if you could bring something purple (e.g. a ribbon or a flower) to put on her coffin at the crematorium.
 
We will have Memory Boards at the party, and we hope that you will post a memory or a thought about Joan. After the party we will put these together into a book to celebrate her life.
 
I do hope you can come, and help us make this a true celebration of an amazing life.
 
Joan was a tireless campaigner who has supported Veggies Catering on many occasions. Her book ‘In the Shadow of Mahatma Gandhi’ has been available from Veggies bookstall.
 


Today we say goodbye to a great warrior for the oppressed, Joan Court who was a nurse, midwife and social worker, who walked with Mahatma Ghandi, who fought for the rights of women in India and Pakistan, who fought for children’s rights and for the rights of non humans. In 2013 she came to the Gloucestershire badger cull zone and, we think, in her mid 90s was the oldest sab in the field for the 2 nights she was out. Total respect and love to this wonderful lady, sleep well Joan, you have earned it xxxxx

Image may contain: 1 person, smiling, cat

A tribute to Joan Court, written by Andrew Tyler of Animal Aid, has appeared on the “other lives” section of the Guardian website & in print edition on 24 December.

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/dec/22/joancourtobituary

My friend Joan Court, the animal and human rights activist, who has died aged 97, was driven by a powerful impulse to expose and remedy injustice and cruelty. She was also, as she put it, a “born sensualist”, her tastes running to strong colours, perfumes and “exciting action”. This, and her desire to do good, underpinned her many adventures.

Her start in life was hard: her father, Cecil Court, a solicitor, took his own life, and her mother, Muriel (nee Gibson), was an alcoholic. She had an older brother, Peter.

Joan’s schooling ended when she was 12, after her father’s death. She and her mother moved from their London home to work in domestic service in Cornwall and then Cape Town, South Africa. Returning to London in 1936, she went on to qualify as a nurse and midwife at St Thomas’ hospital, and as a social worker in Bristol. She practised as a midwife and, funded initially by the Friends Service Council (FSC) and later as a World Health Organisation employee, worked in impoverished regions of India and Turkey, and the Appalachian mountains of North America.

In the 1960s, she was appointed director of the NSPCC battered child research unit, and was influential in gaining acceptance of a then unfamiliar concept in the UK.

In 1946, when she was working for the FSC, organising midwifery services in the slums of Calcutta (Kolkata), she met and got to know Mahatma Gandhi. Joan, a lifelong vegetarian, developed a profound respect for his commitment, compassion and determination to achieve change through non-violent means. She tried to emulate these goals, campaigning first for children and, for the last 38 years, for animals.

In 1978, after seeing a poster describing the horrors of animal research, she took part in an Animal Aid anti-vivisection march in Cambridge. The next day she founded a new Cambridge group, which was soon involved in all animal-related issues, including live exports, hunting, shooting, whaling and the meat and dairy industries.

Her advanced age made her attention-grabbing stunts also irresistible to the media. Her animal campaigning began just before she was 60 – when she gained a social anthropology degree from Cambridge. There were banner-hangs, public hunger strikes and sit-downs in inconvenient
places. She locked herself in a cage and chained herself to railings. In speeches and interviews she refused to apologise for radical direct action, although she was opposed to violence.

Her most lasting triumph was, with Pat Griffin and Sue Hughes, as one of three Cambridge “granarchists” who initiated what became a national campaign of opposition to Cambridge University’s plans for a massive new research facility that would have specialised in invasive neurologicalexperiments on monkeys. The university abandoned the project in January  2004.

At the age of 85, she joined the Sea Shepherd flagship, Farley Mowat, on a hunt for illegal fishing vessels in the South Atlantic.

Joan could be self-absorbed, cantankerous, bossy and infuriating, but her friends were friends for life.

 

Nottingham Green Festival

We are delighted to announce that the Nottingham Green Festival will return on Sunday 11th September, following its hugely successful relaunch in 2015.

The event is organised by grass roots, community based volunteers, with no statutory funding, so your help would be most welcome. Whilst we are only a small part of the organising team, Veggies is pleased to provide support by facilitating planning meetings, hosting the NottmGreenFest.org.uk website and, of course, providing Food by Veggies on the day!

Due to the withdrawal of funding the event did not happen in 2014, but Veggies covered essential up-front expenses and the Nottingham community rose to the challenge of making it happen in 2015, regardless of the tight budget. However these funds will need to be recouped and recycled long before 11th September to fund this year’s event, so your support is invited:

Show support for the event by making a small donation. Click the button to donate with PayPal or credit/debit cards; send a cheque to “Nottingham Green Festival”, c/o Sumac Centre, 245 Gladstone Street, Nottingham NG7 6HX; or transfer directly to: Nottingham Green Festival, Unity Trust Bank, sort code 08-60-01, a/c no 53110426 …more…

Nottingham Green Festival Ethos

Inspired by the decision by Shambala Festival to be the first mid-scale commercial festival to declare a meat free policy – a position established by Nottingham Green Festival over 30 year ago – we welcome a debate about whether to stay ahead of the game by taking the next logical step, aiming for vegan catering, whilst sharing info inviting other stall holders to leave animal products at home on this occasion.

“Shambala HQ is a mixed bag, with vegans, veggies and meat eaters co-existing harmoniously together, but the whole team agrees that it is important to be bold with our environmental stance, and encourage this debate.”

“The research available clearly demonstrates that overall, a meat-free diet has about half the carbon impact of a meat diet, and a dairy-free vegan diet has a third of the impact.”

Please, see the full meat-and-fish-free-for-2016 discussion.

As Shambala say: “We’re certainly not trying to tell everyone they should become vegan overnight. We are simply not serving meat for [4 days at] the festival to reduce the festival’s impacts, to take a stance, and to encourage an important debate.”

Please let us know what you think: info@NottmGreenFest.org.uk


Nottingham Green Festival Gallery

Veggies is also hosting a mailing list for announcements, news and information about Nottingham Green Festival. (Note: You may get a ‘security certificate‘ warning! Fear not; this is because the list is provided by The Riseup Collective, an activist internet group that doesn’t tick all the corporate boxes). You can safely click through. Honest. Please do subscribe.

Nottingham Green Festival LogoYour support will make all the difference in ensuring the success of Nottingham’s own Green Festival, the place for the whole family to learn, explore and try the latest in everything environmentally friendly and ethical, whilst also having lots of fun in the beautiful setting of the Arboretum Park, Waverley Street / Addison Street, a couple of minutes from Nottingham’s Old Market Square.

With your help, the event will have over 100 product, information and food stalls, kids rides, workshops, natural therapies and sustainable technologies, performers and entertainment throughout the park and live music from the bandstand.

Visit the Nottingham Green Festival website for more event details.


Womens Lib = Animal Lib

Published by Veggies for Derby Womens Day 2015

Animal Lib Human Lib logo“As women enjoy the gains we have made in the path to our own equality, we must continue to assert our own presence and recognize our uniquely personal stake in fighting for those who are still being silenced.” – How Sexism and Animal Cruelty Coexist by Theresa Noll

“Why vegan? We maintain that Nonhuman Animals represent a distinct at-risk social group. Fighting against human inequality makes no sense so long as we perpetuate the inequality of other animals. What we eat, what we wear, how we entertain ourselves, etc. is so often built on the oppression of Nonhuman Animals (which also oppresses vulnerable human groups). Speciesism, racism, sexism, disableism, heterosexism, classism, etc. are all rooted in the same source operating with similar ideologies and mechanisms” – Vegan Feminist Movement

“A noun is a person, place, or thing,” we obediently recite as children. What, then, are nonhuman animals? They aren’t people or places, so – convention tells us – they must be things. Current English usage is speciesist. It glorifies the human species and belittles all others. Just as sexist language demeans women and excludes them from full consideration, speciesist language demeans and excludes nonhuman animals. When we consign other animals to the category thing, we obscure their sentience, individuality and right to autonomy.” – On The Issues Magazine: A Magazine of Feminist, Progressive Thinking

Feminist Animal Liberation LogoAn interesting read about the connections between Feminism and Animal Rights is, ‘The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory’ by Carol Adams. The award-winning book explores a relationship between patriarchal values and meat eating by interweaving the insights of feminism, vegetarianism, animal defense, and literary theory.

What’s Wrong With the Dairy Industry?

Dairy cow and calf“After repeated cycles of forced impregnations, painful births, relentless milkings, and crushing bereavements, their spirit gives, their bodies wither, their milk dries up. At the age when, in nature, a female cow would barely enter adulthood, the life of a dairy cow is over. When her milk ‘production’ declines, she and her other ‘spent’ herd mates are trucked off to slaughter. Some are pregnant. All are still lactating. As they are shoved towards death, they drip milk onto the killing floor… All dairy operations, including Organic, exist solely by doing to millions of defenseless females the worst thing anyone can do to a mother.”

“Milk Comes from a Grieving Mother” ~ leaflet by Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary

Most people can see the animal exploitation inherent in the meat industry, but the dairy industry isn’t immediately obvious. Dairy cows are portrayed as having an idyllic life but the reality is that cows (like all mammals) only produce milk for their young in response to giving birth. The animals are kept in a cycle of near constant pregnancy and lactation (meaning huge physical and metabolic stress, often leading to disease and exhaustion). Each cow also suffers the separation from their young, calling for each other desperately – something which has been studied and even the dairy industry themselves admit it causes emotional stress. Male calves are often unwanted ‘by-products’ of the dairy industry and are shot at only a few hours old.

Feminists for animal lib photo

Photo: 1980's 'Feminists for Animal Rights' - a network of women striving to live cruelty-free lives.

Want to Ditch the Meat and Dairy?

Visit the following websites for more information:

Vegan Society – www.vegansociety.com
Viva! – www.milkmyths.org.uk
Vegan Kit – www.vegankit.com

Vegan RevolutionYou can buy lots of alternatives to meat and dairy in supermarkets – many sell their own brand products and also other vegan brands. But for the most ethical option we recommend shopping at your local independent health food shop. In Derby we support the vegan shop Sound Bites on Morledge.

Most meat-based meals can simply be veganised using meat-free alternatives such as veggie mince (such as Veggies burger mix, veggie burgers and tofu.

Vegan alternatives to milk

altThere are a great variety of milk alternatives that are widely available. Most people know about soya milk, but there is also oat, coconut, rice, hazelnut, almond and hemp!

Vegan alternatives to butter

There are soya, sunflower, olive and coconut blend spreads.

Vegan alternatives to cheese

There are all kinds of cheese substitutes – cheddar, edam, mozarella, parmesan, spreadable soft cheeses and meltable cheese for pizza. Some are soya based and some nut based.

Vegan chocolate!

Lots of dark chocolate is already vegan but there is also a wide range of vegan chocolate, with milk chocolate, white chocolate and every other variety under the sun.

There there are also vegan alternatives to dairy yoghurt, cream, ice cream, cakes, mayonnaise… anything you can think of really! What’s more, there are exciting new products all the time.

Feel free to Contact Veggies for any help or advice.

Download the flier – 3 jpg files

Women's Day flier Women's Day flier Womens Day flier

or download as pdf file here


Christmas at Veggies & Sumac

After an active period travelling all over to support everyone else’s vegan festivities, ending with the Worcester Vegan Fair, Veggie are looking forward to kicking back on Saturday 21st December.

Our friends at our Sumac Centre home base will be celebrating the longest night of the year with a festive bring-a-dish-mega-meal at the Sumac Centre!

The bar will be serving mulled wine and mince pies along with it’s usual fare, we’ll have fire in a barrel in the yard for you to warm your hands and there’ll be fairy lights, bunting and candles galore as we transform the centre into a festive wonderland.

The sumac cafe will provide enough roast potatoes and gravy to feed the masses but the rest is up to you!

So bring a vegan dish to share of your festive favourites, savoury or sweet, and join in the feast!

This isn’t a regular People’s Kitchen and there are limited spaces for the meal so if you’d like to be part of it, please buy your ticket in advance.

We have 50 tickets which we’ll be selling at the bar over the next two weeks or you can reserve your ticket by emailing sumaccafe@gmail.com. There’s a suggested donation of £3 and all money raised will go towards the new Sumac boiler fund so feel free to give more if you can!

To ensure you get a slice of ALL the action, arrive on time at 7pm.

We’ll be decorating the centre, chopping, baking and generally merrymaking from 2pm so come get stuck in!

Christmas Day

There are also a few spaces at the Christmas Day get-together at Sumac Centre on Wednesday 25th December. Veggies’ Chrissy is heading up a vegan Christmas Feast, to contribute between £5 & £10, according to their means.

For more info or to express your interest contact us.

…more…

For more ideas and info to celebrate a Caring and Compassionate Christmas. visit our Vegan Christmas blog.

That’s all folks, for 2013, but we already have over a dozen events on Veggies 2014 events diary, including our own 30th Anniversary!

So, our thanks and best wishes go out to all our volunteers, friends and supporters. If you can’t make it to one of the end of year celebrations, we look forward to seeing you next year,


Milks of Human Kindness

Milk of Human Kindness

For 30 years (at the time of this 2013 article) Veggies of Nottingham have been working to promote compassionate catering. In all those years we have never used calves milk, nor any other animal products. In 1984 this was unheard of, but now customers rarely ask “do you have normal milk” – Plant Milk Is Normal.

The choice is no longer soya milk or calves milk. With Oat, Hemp, Coconut, Rice, Soya, Spelt, Almond, Hazelnut, Flax and many more plant milks widely available, why would any one choose to cause suffering to cows and their calves.

With the support of Granovita (soya milk), Koko (coconut milk) Good Hemp (hemp milk) and others, Veggies continues to bring these many choices to vegans and non-vegans alike.

Different milks may be preferred for different purposes. Some are better to make smoothies or ice-cream, for cooking, on cereals, or for use in tea & coffee.

Experiment. Enjoy them all!

non-dairy milks

This non-dairy milk spotter chart is from the Stop the Cull facebook page. For a discussion of many more choices and preferences visit the Stop the Cull site.

See also the Vegan’s Guide to Non-Dairy Milks

The dairy industry is pressing for the killing of 70% badgers in cull zones, but what else can farmers do to ‘protect’ their cows? When they have killed ‘their’ cows at an unnaturally young age (when their milk production falls), they could grow almonds, hazelnuts, oats or hemp instead. The efficiencies of growing food for direct human consumption might free up land for wildlife, and even for ex-dairy cattle to live out their lives in retirement.

Tips for successful use of plant milks

These days people understand that soya milk may separate in coffee – they rarely complain, but they do seek the solution.

The factors behind soy milk separating are acidity and temperature.

The solution: the optimal temperature to brew coffee if about 93 °C – not boiling.
If your milk separates simply add more milk, allow coffee to cool or make it less strong. Some milks settle, so it is always worth giving a quick shake before use.

 

Advice for going dairy-free is available from the Animal Aid website.

Read the facts about milk production and consumption, human health, animal welfare and factory farmed cows at www.milkmyths.org.uk

 

Ethical Consumer ratings for non-dairy milk

 

Vegan Milk ethical score chartThis table shows ratings calculated on 28/08/2018 based on the Ethical shopping guide to Soya & Non-Dairy Milk. This is a product guide from Ethical Consumer, the UK’s leading alternative consumer organisation. (The big 7 supermarkets all fall off the bottom of the table!)

Groupe Danone, who own the Alpro, Provamel, Soya Soleil and White Wave brands (as at June 2017), is a French company with a  “26% share of the worldwide Fresh Dairy Products market”

Best Buys

As at 28th August 2018, the ‘live scores’ available to Ethical Consumer subscribers indicated that the best buys for plant milk are: Lucy Bee fair trade coconut milk, Plamil and The Bridge; followed by Good Hemp, EcoMil , Sunrise & Oatly).

For more discussion of individual companies, policies & milk choices see our Product Info for Non-dairy Milk.

Plant Milk Sampling with Veggies

Print & distribute the flier

Plant Milk Flier
Plant Milk Flier

Print & distribute the flier

Comments:

Johnny: “To support unhealthy industrially farmed milk full of puss the centre of nottingham was blocked off with barriers, goodness knows how the elderly& physically disabled coped. No wonder cows get TB, if you want to help stop badger culls avoid most milk, please.”

TomClements: “The Milk Race”. What a joke. Trying to propagandize milk as some sort of health-giving food, despite the world’s healthiest societies being entirely dairy-free and supported by largely plant-based food. Dairy only does us, the environment and the animals that produce it massive amounts of harm. It’s a vile industry that wields far too much power over people and governments.


Plamil : Plantmilk Pioneers

Arthur Ling formed Plamil to market The Milk of Human Kindness in 1965!


Shortlink to this page http://www.veggies.org.uk/?p=4074


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