Seaspiracy & why we need to STOP fishing

I am dedicated to making eco swaps and trying to switch from single use plastics to reusable alternatives wherever we can. But the biggest cause of plastic pollution in our ocean by FAR is caused by the fishing industry. This week we watched Seaspiracy and I was shocked and appalled at the ethical and environmental impact of the fishing industry. Here are some reasons why...

How to have a confident plant-based pregnancy

I'm lucky that I've always been met with positivity when it comes to having a healthy vegan pregnancy, but I know for many this can be a worry. I want to share some of the things I've done throughout both of my vegan pregnancies which reassure me that baby is thriving when it comes to fuelling my body!

Veganuary: Five Cruelty Free, Vegan Beauty Favourites

[Features press sample - see disclaimer]

Somehow, we're halfway through January - usually I find this month drags its heels, but somewhat mercifully it's passing quite quickly! However, before the month is through I want to chat more about Veganuary - but NOT about food. There's more to veganism than what we consume in our diet, it's about our consumer and lifestyle choices as a whole, and something I learned early on in my vegan journey was the importance of cruelty free beauty. Even a few years ago, finding products that were both cruelty free and vegan could be quite difficult as labelling wasn't always clear. Fortunately for us this market has expanded widely and now boasts some INCREDIBLE products which make you question why you'd ever choose something that uses animal testing when you can instead opt for beautiful, conscientious, plant based products. And today I'll be sharing five of my favourites (new and old!) to inspire you this Veganuary. Sound good? Let's get started...

Veganuary: How to be Vegan in a non-plant based household

Firstly - I feel you! I grew up as a vegetarian in a non-veggie home, and for a long time J ate meat - I never thought I'd see the day when he went vegan! Whether your household is likely to transition or not, here are a couple of tips for how to live harmoniously. 💚

Breaking the cheese addiction

I'm now approaching three and a half years of veganism. It's flown by and I can't imagine life before now. So I wanted to resume my vegan mini series, and today I want to tackle cheese - the weakness for so many people! I remember before I was vegan we would have phases where it felt like everything tasted better with cheese on top, so today I'm going to explain why you might feel that way and to provide some alternatives.

Veganism: the "grey areas"

It's World Vegan Month and I've not posted much at all - apologies about that! Today, though, I actually want to talk about some difficult grey areas which can happen when you're passionate about veganism as well as the environment. On the whole, veganism is a HUGELY environmentally friendly thing, but I'd love to chat about these points with you all and see where you stand on them. These are three divisive topics amongst the plant based community so please keep it judgment free!

Going vegan: getting started

 

Continuing with my vegan series, I want to focus less on the "why" (you can scroll back for plenty of reasons!) and more on the "how". I know lots of people support the idea and intention of a compassionate lifestyle but don't know where to start. So today I'm going to post a few tips to think about when getting started.

Five Reasons I'm Vegan (Compassion)

Today I'm continuing my mini series about why we are a vegan family! We choose to be vegan due to three factors: health, compassion and the environment. I'm not here to be militant or scary, but I hope everybody can learn from some of these facts! Today's focus is on veganism for the animals. This is a hard subject to speak about but it's a very worthy one as many of the facts aren't common knowledge.

Five reasons I'm vegan (health)

Today I'm continuing my mini series about why we are a vegan family! We choose to be vegan due to three factors: health, compassion and the environment. I want to start speaking a little more about some of these factors in greater detail. I'm not here to be militant or scary, but I hope everybody can learn from some of these facts! Today's focus is on veganism for health. A balanced, whole foods plant based diet is one of the healthiest diets you can have so I have a multitude of facts to choose from for today's post, but I'll stick to just five!

Five reasons I'm vegan (environmental)

I wanted to start a new mini series chatting about some reasons why we are a vegan family! We choose to be vegan due to three factors: health, compassion and the environment. I want to start speaking a little more about some of these factors in greater detail - I'm not here to be militant or scary, but I hope everybody can learn from some of these facts! Today's focus is on veganism for the environment.

Vegan chocolate sandwich muffins

Yesterday we had the pleasure of having Eden's best pal come over for a little garden visit - Everleigh turned one on Monday and birthday girls need birthday cake. I tried a new recipe for the first time which I'm actually really pleased with - it wasn't the healthiest of bakes I've made as I was low on ingredients but it was certainly a worthy treat. It's super easy too!

Apple strudel breakfast bars

 Recently my cousin told me a recipe for apple strudel cocktails (raspberry gin or vodka, prosecco and cloudy apple juice, FYI.) Somehow I've not gotten around to making those (a rookie mistake!) but I DID make apple strudel breakfast bars instead! We get through a lot of oats in our house - they're cheap, nutritious and Eden absolutely loves them. This is a new combination - inspired by @littlemindfulvegan who uses applesauce to bind her oat bars. Because we get through lots of these I like to play with the recipe, so these consist of a few layers: a soft oat and fruit bar, layered with applesauce, and topped with crunchy cinnamon oats.

Vegan Vitamins for Toddlers: What We Supplement & Why

Something I'm asked often about raising Eden on a plant based diet is whether we have to supplement her diet - the short answer is yes, we do! But in fact, I'd give her vitamins regardless of veganism.

Vegan Raspberry and Cacao Rice Pudding

I've had one of those elusive, very productive mornings: I baked sourdough and put out the nappy wash I prepped last night. I've made Eden some oat bars and put dinner in the slow cooker. I've done the dishwasher, put on more laundry, but most excitingly, I made this raspberry and cacao rice pudding.

Foraging for Nettles / Stinging Nettle Pie

This might sound mad but stinging nettles are incredibly nutritious, tasty, and are lurking in many of our gardens for free! When Eden was born we brought a big batch of vegetable pasta with nettle pesto into hospital in with us as there wasn't much vegan food available. It was delicious and really kept us going through the first hazy newborn days, so I like them even more now.

Vegan Carrot Cake

 We had another first in our house on Eden's birthday yesterday: the first cake J has decorated! I was assembling the cake (as the icing is best done at the last minute) and a tired birthday girl decided she couldn't wait a moment longer for a feed. So J finished it off and did a lovely job - and Eden very happily ate all of her slice (no walnuts on her bit!) I thought I'd share this recipe for anybody else that needs a good vegan carrot cake in their life.

My Vegan Journey // Why Nobody's Perfect

This week the world celebrated World Vegan Day (as well as the start of World Vegan Month) which recognises the founding of the Vegan Society in 1944. In July I wrote about why I went vegan which gave an overview of why this type of lifestyle is so aspirational to me. However, I'm incredibly aware of the fact that I'm not a perfect role model for veganism in any way and today I wanted to be honest about that and why I think it's okay to not be flawless but to be aware of areas where improvements can be made.

An issue I have noticed repeatedly when a lifestyle choice comes into conversation (usually for me this might be chatting about sustainability, going cruelty free, or avoiding animal products, but it's applicable to countless topics) is that people love to find flaws in what you are doing, searching for any possible contradiction or hypocrisy. This bothers me as I am of the opinion that every conscious choice matters and I don't believe any of us can be the "perfect" consumer. It is also frustrating that the majority of those who object to positive change are people who are not interested or well informed on the subject. I don't agree that anybody has a place to judge others or tell them what to do, but I believe in applauding the conscious choices we do make as it all mounts up to make a difference - and educating ourselves and others. This desire to be "perfect" and free of hypocrisy is something which put me off veganism for the longest time as I felt I would be fighting a losing battle, but actually it's the best thing I've ever done for myself. I'm by no means perfect, as I'm about to tell you, but I am so happy with the choices I am making, and the ones I plan to make in the future. But here are some of the things I'm struggling with to fit in with the "vegan" identity...

Health & Nutrition: My Must-Have Books

"My experience as a human being changed when I realised that I am what I eat and when I decided to give myself the best chance possible to feel as good as possible."

It's human nature to want the best for ourselves. People fill up their cars with fuel that gives them the best value per mile. We choose the posh bleach that smells good and works better, rather than the value version. Yet, when it comes to food, we are often blinkered to the link between our diet and overall wellbeing as a whole.

Health and nutrition are a big interest of mine, and something I feel passionately about. When I am eating healthily I feel better in every way: not only physically in my digestion, body and skin, I also notice a huge difference in my mood and energy levels. There are so many aspects to nutrition and wellbeing that I find fascinating and want to discuss, but today I thought I'd start at the foundation by sharing some of the resources that have taught me, many which I still refer back to regularly, and have found fascinating in my approach to educating myself in this hugely important area. Ranging from theory-based to recipe-based, I genuinely believe that taking the time to learn from these resources is the most valuable thing I have ever done for my health.

Cruelty Free Beauty & Parent Companies?

Have you ever watched Carnage by Simon Amstell? It's a BBC mockumentary set in 2067 when veganism is the norm and people look back in horror at the way animals were treated 50 years ago. Therapy groups are attended by those traumatised and ashamed by their omnivorous pasts. They take turns naming the types of cheese they have eaten, and break down in tears or run out of with room with guilt and stigma. It's a witty and compelling watch, I'd highly recommend it - but I'm bringing it up because this particular therapy group scene illustrates exactly how I feel with regards to cruelty free beauty. I have to be honest here - the prolific use of animal testing on cosmetics is something that  has escaped my attention for far too long.

As somebody that has been (and could still be considered) a full-blown beauty addict, I've been known to spend a lot of money on cosmetics. I'm a sucker for luxury packaging, the sheer excitement to try a product for the first time, the very real feeling that a lipstick or blusher in that exact shade has been missing from my life. I'm an art grad, and makeup is just another form of art to me. Sure, I mostly do the same thing with my face on the daily but the transformation of creating it has become a ritual: it makes me feel empowered and allows me to present myself to the world the way I want to. It's a form of self-care: time I take for myself in the morning to get myself together and get ready to face the day. But whilst I'd repeatedly justified my expenditure on these products as a vice for my own personal pleasure and self-care, I'd never considered whether some of my vices were actually making me a hypocrite. To quote Miley Cyrus (which I never thought I'd do) "If you choose to eat meat you love pets, not animals." Can the same can be argued for buying cosmetics which are not cruelty-free?

Why I Went Vegan?

When I had just turned ten years old, I announced to my parents that I wanted to turn vegetarian. I don't remember specifically what triggered my desire to abolish meat but the overall decision was out of compassion. I had always been an animal lover, in fact back then I wanted to be a vet like my paternal uncle. My maternal auntie's vegetarianism had always fascinated me - she'd not eaten meat since she was a teenager, making her well ahead of her time. But even in the early 2000s when I made the change, vegetarianism was not (at least, amongst those who I knew) a commonly understood concept. I remember consistently having to justify my decision to befuddled people: "I just think I can live a healthy diet without having to kill animals." Eating this way was different (and on the whole more difficult) back then - over the past fifteen years I have seen supermarket options multiply considerably, foods are labelled much less ambiguously, and to be vegetarian (aside from eating in very high-end restaurants or certain country pubs) is so incredibly easy now. Had I opted to go vegan at ten years old I think my parents would have been in despair due to the lack of mainstream available knowledge and produce, but these days it's so much easier to do. It's something I've always come back to thinking about, but equally never thought I'd do. So I suppose the real question is what changed my mind, and why is going vegan so important to me after all this time?