“Non-Violence begins on your dinner plate”

Our first on-site blog on the new Veggies website comes from the site of the Peace News Summer Camp at Watchfield, Wiltshire.

Menu and recipes

Friday Lunch: A selection of Pasties (from Screaming Carrot), mashed spuds, salad
Friday Dinner: Vegetable Stew, Garlic Bread, Salad

Saturday Lunch: Veggies Burger, Potato Salad
Saturday Dinner: Tagine, Cous Cous and salad

Sun lunch: Pasta and Tomato
Sun Dinner: Chickpea Curry & Rice. Tip: Use brown -basmati- to cook large volumes.

Mon Lunch: French Onion Soup (new recipe soon)
Mon Dinner: Tabbouleh and Hummus

Tues: Leek and Potato Soup; Red Beet Coleslaw

In addition Veggies gathering catering includes breakfast with Essential deleuxe muesli, Dove’s Farm gluten free cornflakes, peanut butter, fruit spreads, yeast extract, wholemeal bread, sunflower spread; and teas, coffees and juice throughout the day.

Information Exchange

The Camp provided another opportunity to display and distribute information from a selection of campaigns from the Lush Charity Pot exhibition …read more…

Workshops

‘Practical Cakemaking‘

Veggies ran a workshop sharing recipes for Carrot Cake, Chocolate Cake and Ginger Cake.

More at http://www.veggies.org.uk/catering/veggies-recipes/cakes-desserts/

‘Can we eat ourselves to a better world?’

We also led a facilitated discussion, following 3 themes:

Non-violence begins on your dinner plate – Veganism in the peace movement.
Food and Climate Change – the elephant in your kitchen.
Catering for all – can veganism offer a link between movements for social change?

We received the following feedback:

Make Cake, Not War
Content: 10/10 average!
Presentation: 9/10

What people liked:
Very creative, participation, good to learn new skills and see how easy it is to make a cake, cake!

What could be improved:
Organisation!

Can we eat our way out of crisis?
Content: 9.6/10
Presentation: 9.6/10

What people liked:
The open totally non-judgemental approach to the topic and the supportive attitude towards me as the least ‘vegan’ member of the group to encourage and help me to reduce my consumption of animal products, very relaxed, lots of info, well presented, friendly, how everyone chipped in their own ideas and it was more of a group discussion, clear, interesting and intelligent discussion.

What could be improved?
Maybe a break halfway through, listening to each other.

Peace News are planning to run the camp again next year and would really welcome your feedback on the experience. Below are the questions to which they are particularly interested in getting feedback. Reply to beth_rowan@riseup.net

How did you feel about your experience before the camp?
About how you were contacted and approached?
Did you feel you were provided with adequate information at the right time?
Did you find it easy to get to the camp?
Do you have any thoughts on the schedule?
How did you feel about the arrangements when you were at the camp itself? Both the site as a whole physical set up for the workshops (space, facililities, signs etc).
Do you feel that the camp should have provided a facilitator for your workshop or any other workshop you attended?
What did you particularly like about the camp?
What did you feel could be improved?

No War For Oil

Farming animals for food wastes a lot of energy. Animals are food and energy factories in reverse – most of the nutritional and energy value of what they eat is used by their bodily functions. It takes about 10kg of prime vegetable protein to produce 1kg of meat protein. Oil-based fertilisers are needed to produce crops fed to intensively reared animals. By burning fossel fuel for unnecessary industrialisation world-wide, the human race is causing a change in climate which, if unchecked, will make life on this planet unsustainable.

Prevent water wars

Not satisfied with overconsumption of the world’s oil supplies, the affluent west exports its wasteful practices to hungry countries. Factory farming systems are being promoted in hot, dry areas, competing with people for limited water supplies. 200 – 250 gallons of water are required to produce a pound of rice, but between 2,500 to 6,000 gallons are used to produce a pound of meat. Future conflicts are predicted for control of water supplies, whilst inappropriate mega-dam projects benefit western construction companies, whilst displacing local peoples.

Info from Movement for Compassionate Living

Food Not Bombs

The world produces enough food to feed everyone, if distributed equally. There is an abundance of food. In fact, in this country, every day in every city, far more edible food is discarded than is needed to feed those who do not have enough to eat.

Why ‘Food Not Bombs’?

Although Veggies is not formally a Food Not Bombs group, consider this description of their work:

“It will take imagination and work to create a world without bombs. Food Not Bombs recognizes our part as providing sustenance for people at demonstrations and events so that they can continue participating in the long term struggle against militarism. We also make it part of our mission to bring our message to other progressive movements. We attend other organizations’ events and support coalition building whenever possible. We try to encourage the … recognition that if we cooperate together, all become stronger.”

Veggies of Nottingham have been providing mass vegan catering to social change movements since 1985.

Climate Friendly Catering

To get to the Peace News 130 miles from our home base at Nottingham’s Sumac Centre, (and back), Veggies will have emitted 160kg CO2.

However by helping 100 people Eat Vegan we will “offset” the equivalent of 640 kg CO2 (averaged over event). If ONE participant goes Vegan For Life, they will save 1.5 tonnes CO2 equivalent every year, as well as saving 4022 animals’ lives, and enabling all the world’s peoples to receive a Fair Share of the world’s resources.

Refs: http://www.veggies.org.uk/page.php?ref=521