The Ordinary Vegan - The Great Vegan Challenge

This week's TOV is a special edition totally devoted to The Great Vegan Challenge. Now, if you haven't heard of this before, it is a great way to try out being vegan for a few weeks and see how it works for you. It is run by the great people over at http://www.govegan.org.uk/ and if you or someone you know is currently an omnivore, a pescetarian or a vegetarian and is interested in veganism, the idea is you can sign up for free via the website, get loads of information, help, support and tips and you pledge to go vegan for one month during November. 

This is an easily achievable goal and then you you can see how it makes you feel and what you learn about the meat and dairy industries during your month. You may decide after the month to go back to your old diet, you may decide to make some key changes and reduce your meat/dairy intake or you may just realise how much better you feel and how much fun vegan cooking and eating can be and make a commitment to veganism for life. Whatever the outcome, you will have educated yourself about the choices you make when you eat, cook or buy products and will have made a positive difference during your one month challenge, so what is stopping you?

Here is some information about the challenge from the govegan website:

November is Vegan Month so why not try our 30-day vegan challenge? This is your chance to enjoy an animal-free diet, while we offer you all the support and information you need to make it successful and enjoyable.

You can share your experiences, swap recipes, and ask us any questions you like via our online Agony Aunt! And everyone who takes up the challenge will be entered into our prize draw to win a hamper of vegan goodies. This really is a wonderful opportunity to try a diet that is kinder to you, the planet and to animals.Register now!

If you live outside the UK, you may wish to look at the support available from a group in your country: check our list.

Mark Gold

Vegan Challenge Co-ordinator

Now, you might be thinking, "it's easy for you, Vegan Vox, you are already vegan", but remember I only became vegan in January 2013 so it wasn't that long ago I was making this pledge. Also, I thought to make things a little easier for those of you who might like to try the challenge, Mr Vox is going to join you on the one month challenge in November too. He is signing up through http://www.govegan.org.uk/ and he will be guest blogging here on veganvox.co.uk throughout the month with his updates on how it's going for him. He faces the challenge that he works in the food and beverage industry and has to serve meat, fish and dairy to customers daily, so whilst he may have it easy at home having me cook fab vegan meals for him :-), every day will be more of a challenge at work for him.

The govegan challenge is run by Animal Aid who are the UK's largest Animal Rights Group, why not get family and friends to sponsor your vegan challenge and donate the money to Animal Aid to help support the great work they do to try and end animal suffering and cruelty.

If you are already vegan but know a friend, neighbour, child or relative that may be up for the challenge please forward this post to them, encourage them to sign up and show them all of the gorgeous vegan recipes available on my blog to help them through the month!

Good Luck on the challenge and feel free to comment on this post or email me veganvoxblog@gmail.com with any questions or if you are finding it tough, maybe I can help you along your challenge.

Big Vegan Love,

VVx

The Ordinary Vegan - Superdrug

This week's The Ordinary Vegan is a chain of shops rather than one product. This week I am choosing to highlight Superdrug. Since becoming vegan, it has been harder for me to find cosmetics, skincare and toiletries than food. There are specialist stores and organic online products available but many are expensive and you have to do your research. A few weeks ago, I went into Superdrug and saw this notice:

This got me thinking about whether many of their products were vegan as well as not tested on animals. Well, it turns out that not just do they have many vegan products, but they label them as vegan too. 

So I needed a few toiletries this week and popped back in, it's really easy as all of their own brand products which are vegan say so on the packaging and all of their own brand products are not tested on animals and are BUAV approved. I bought some hand wash, shaving gel, skincare oil, moisturiser and foot spray. All vegan, all not tested on animals and no animal ingredients. 

I also browsed around the shop and found they had vegan shampoo and conditioner, cleansers, toners, body creams, baby powder and baby wash, and much more. As Superdrug has branches in most high streets and towns, as well as shopping centres and an online store, I think they more than qualify for The Ordinary Vegan this week. They also sell vegan Original Source products which I featured here. It would be great if one day all of their products were vegan as I don't believe any beauty products need animal ingredients, by-products or animal testing but they have made a positive start and if we vegans go and buy these products they will only make more, which can only be a positive step in the right direction.

Come back later this week for a yummy Vegan Recipe of the Week and a Vegan Vox Reviews...

Big Vegan Love,

VVx

Vegan Vox Reviews...V Revolution, Manchester.

As me and Mr Vox had a week off together this week, we decided to go and spend a lovely day in Manchester on Tuesday and check out their vegan/veggie scene as I had heard some good things about Manchester. I have been to Manchester many times before being vegan so this was with fresh eyes. One of the places I was most excited about visiting was V Revolution in the Northern Quarter. I had been following them on Twitter and Instagram for a while and the food looked amazing so I couldn't wait to try it. The rest of our visit to Manchester will be covered in a future post.

We arrived at V Revolution around 2pm, after walking around Manchester for several hours and we had worked up an appetite! This quirky 1950s style American style diner, with booths, sofas and red & cream chairs was inviting. As well as the all vegan diner, there is a vegan food shop selling chocolates, sweets, jerky, cheese, meat substitutes, pies, sandwiches and more! There is also a punk record shop at the back of the store to cater for your music needs as well.

We took a seat near the window and looked at the menu, it included classic American fast foods which are difficult to find as vegans, unless you make at home. There were vegan versions of big macs, chicken burgers, hotdogs as well as grilled cheese sandwiches, ice cream floats, coffees and milkshakes and cakes! there is also a daily specials board with exciting super sized versions of fast food. I was in heaven! I ordered a Nachodog and Mr Vox had a Mini Mac along with some organic lemonade and cola drinks to wash it all down with. The diner got quite busy while we were in there, although we didn't have to wait too long for our food. Whilst I was waiting though, I had a walk around the shop and viewed the community board, great for vegan meet-ups, animal rights rallies and local bands. There was a leaflet table also for people to advertise local community events, and I browsed the fridge, freezer and shelves for some vegan treats to take away with me.

Now to the food, the portion sizes were generous given the low cost and although both our meals were not very hot, they tasted delicious! My nachodog consisted of a spicy hotdog sausage in a bun topped with cheese, spicy beans, salsa and crushed nachos! Mr Vox's Mini Mac consisted of a beef-style patty in a bun with burger sauce, cheese and gherkins. This was proper vegan junk food, tasty and fun and no mung beans or lentils in sight. The staff were friendly and there was a real community vibe in the place. 

After our meals, which didn't take too long as we were hungry and they were delicious, I bought some Veganic Pizza Cheese and a Primal Strips Hickory Smoked vegan jerky bar to take home. I haven't tried either of these yet but will review them as soon as I do. V Revolution also do a loyalty card where if you buy 9 specials, you get the 10th free! 

We had a great time in V Revolution, I have never been to an all vegan restaurant before and it was so refreshing to be able to order anything on the menu without worrying about ingredients and the knowledge of the staff when it comes to veganism. I wish there was one of these in every city in the UK. Manchester, I will be back soon, I promise! 

V Revolution can be found at:

88 Oldham Street

Manchester

M4 1 LF

Please head back next week for a review of some of the other places I visited on my day trip to Manchester.

Big Vegan Love,

VVx

Vegan Vox Reviews...2 Moon Trading Co. Walsall, West Midlands

Last week I was fortunate enough to spend a lovely hour or so at 2 Moon Trading Co. in Walsall, West Midlands. I met with one of the co-owners - Georga, interviewed her, took some pictures of the shop, got given a couple of samples of the products to try for free and met her lovely puppy, Mylo!

First of all, let me tell you that this shop is a hidden little vegan gem! It is in a pretty mews, off a small side street behind the markets in Walsall, with grape vines growing over the archway. I would never have known it was there if it wasn't for the wonderful world of Twitter where I connected with the owners. 2 Moon Trading Co. are a bath, body and skincare boutique, selling all vegan products like bathbombs, soaps, solid shampoos, bath truffles, massage bars, shower gels, body butters, foot scrubs, eye gels and body jewellery. Think 'Lush' but on a smaller independent scale, much cheaper and 100% vegan! Yay! 

As you walk into the shop, you get the gorgeous smells of all of the bath bombs and your eyes are treated to a gorgeous array of pretty colours and packages, there is bunting around the walls and chalk displays and the owner's puppy to say hello to! What's not to love? They are open Monday-Saturday 10-6. But what's that, I hear you cry? You don't live anywhere near Walsall! Well, that's okay too because they have an online shop too at 2moontradingco.co.uk and they will post items out to your home (in the UK) within 3-5 days.

The best thing about 2 Moon Trading Co. though are the prices. The products start at £1.50 and the most expensive item in the entire shop is only £6 for a large tub of body butter! The bath bombs are around £2 each which makes them more of a regular treat than an expensive luxury item. They have a huge range of fragrances - around 15 different bath bombs and soaps, 8 different bath salts and 3 different body butters, for example.

I asked Georga about the store's origins. Georga and her business partner and co-owner Al live together in a house-share and started 2 Moon as a market stall, frequenting the Black Country Markets of the West Midlands, as their popularity grew, they found these premises in Walsall and decided to set up their own shop - much warmer in the cold months than a market stall! The shop opened in April 2013 and is growing in popularity.

The owners, whilst not vegan themselves, have many vegan friends and they believe that all skin and body care should be cruelty-free and that everyone should be able to buy their products regardless of your beliefs, lifestyle choices, religion or financial status. So they decided to go for natural, vegan products at an affordable price so nobody has to be excluded from purchasing there. This is a refreshing stance for non-vegan business owners to take and let's hope others will realise that this is the best way to get more customers.

Georga is really passionate about what goes in to their products and works on the products from concept to testing and development and she checks all of the ingredients and their provenance before letting her wholesalers go ahead with a product to sell in their shop. She insists on strict ingredient checks and makes sure items are free from all animal testing as well as animal ingredients or by-products. They do not use palm oil in any of their products and their 'honey' products do not use real honey from bees, just honey fragrances - all vegan! If 2 Moon don't currently stock an item that you would like to buy, they will look into the feasibility of the product and try and develop the product with their manufacturers for you. This kind of service only comes from a small independent shop where the owners still have such control over their supply chain.

I asked Georga where the name came from and she told me that she and her business partner had been friends since childhood, and their nicknames for each other at school had always been 'Moon', so 2 Moon Trading Co was born from that early friendship! Aww!

So let's get to the important part of this review - the samples! I am a lucky vegan blogger and Georga gave me a gorgeous Bath Bomb and some Coconut Bay Body Butter to take home and sample :-) They were divine! It felt like a proper luxury treat rather than my usual boring bathtime! These are the kind of products I get bought as birthday gifts from friends and save for a special occasion but at these prices I might just be popping back next payday for a few 'weekly treat' baths! I also purchased a Pink Fizz shaving soap bar as a gift whilst I was there. It is a gorgeous bright pink and I know the recipient will love it, even though they are not vegan. That's the beauty of vegan body products, no one will complain that animals aren't in their bath products or that kittens and rabbits were not harmed in the testing of the products. Vegan beauty products should be the norm for everyone and 2 Moon Trading Co. are starting that revolution right here in the West Midlands!

So, please show some support for this small independent business by visiting the shop, purchasing online or just spreading the word. Too many small companies like this go under because people don't know they exist as they don't have marketing budgets of big chains like Lush or The Body Shop.

You can find 2 Moon Trading Co. at: 

Unit 2, Guildhall Mews, Goodall Street, Walsall WS1 1QJ. 10am-6pm Mon-Sat.

You can connect with them online at: 

https://www.facebook.com/2moontradingco

twitter.com/2moontc

http://www.2moontrading.co.uk/

Read previous Vegan Vox Reviews here.

Until next time,

Big Vegan Love,

VVx

The Ordinary Vegan - Original Source

It's Monday which means it's time for TOV, a regular feature on the blog which looks at ordinary items available at most shops and supermarkets which happen to be vegan. In a rare departure from food, today it is the turn of Original Source products. If you haven't tried them yet, you should, they are gorgeous! They have a range of shower gels, scrubs, hand washes, a men's range, shave gel, bubble baths, shampoos and conditioners. Many of these products are vegan and are approved by The Vegan Society. In addition to this none of their products are tested on animals and they only use natural ingredients and local ingredients where possible.

Here is a quote from the Original Source website:

WE WILL:

• Never ever consider, or even think of, showering or bathing as a routine
• Always remain curious (enough to worry Laura from Health & Safety)
• Use our senses to discover intense experiences
• Use natural ingredients
• Never tire of looking for new ingredients
• Never stop messing around with new ingredients and packaging
• Never test our products on animals
• Always test our products on ourselves
• Never be wasteful

THE PEOPLE WE WORK WITH:

We are a member of the Aromatherapy Trade Council and also work closely with the Vegan Society. Our products contain either pure and natural essential oils or natural extracts. We're not big fans of flying our products in from here, there and everywhere, so we source and produce as much as we can in the UK. After all, it's nice here.

In our bathroom, we use many of the products including the shower gels and scrubs, hand wash and shave gel. The bottles clearly have the Vegan Society logo on, so it is clear which items are suitable. The Men's range has the logo on the back of the bottle and the Womens/Unisex range has it on the front. The products can be bought from all supermarkets in the UK, as well as Superdrug, Boots, Lloyds Chemist, Bodycare etc. They retail for around £2 a product but can often be found on offer for 99p/2 for £2. They come in a range of delicious fragrances such as Coconut, Mint & Tea Tree, Chocolate Mint, Vanilla & Raspberry, Lime and even a Black Pepper & Chilli for the men! I smell so nice when I get out of the shower! This is my favourite hand wash:

Whilst I know there are many vegan and organic skin care and body care ranges out there, Original Source is available at most High Street shops and that's why I am recommending them for The Ordinary Vegan this week.

Let me know which skin care and body care products you use in the comments below.

Big Vegan Love,

VVx

My Vegan Journey - it started with a lamb...

Apologies now for how long this post will be but my vegan journey has also been a long one and one I would like to share with you.

I am 36 years old, and on my 36^th birthday I made the long-time coming decision to become vegan. But this story begins 30 years ago really. When I was 6 years old, my grandmother’s best friend was a farmer. Every year in the springtime, we would drive out in the car, me, my Nan and Granddad to the farm during lambing season and I would get to play with the lambs, cuddle them and hold them and occasionally bottle feed any orphan or rejected lambs. This was one of the highlights of my year and something I really looked forward to.

I came from a very animal-friendly family (although all meat-eaters) and we always raised money for local animal shelters, animal rescue charities and always have had rescue animals sharing our home. Anyway, being 6 years old, it had never occurred to me that these beautiful creatures that I fed on the farm were the same thing my family served me up for dinner.

This particular year, after me rushing over to my granddad to tell him how lovely the lambs were, he made some wry comment about how they would be even lovelier with mint sauce. I burst into tears and begged my Nan to tell me that these lambs were not the ‘lamb’ I ate with my Sunday roast. Of course, she couldn't lie to me and whilst shooting evil looks over at my grandfather she gently tried to explain that all of the meat we eat comes from such animals. Well I was absolutely distraught. I cried all the way home in the car and sobbed myself to sleep. And when my mum and dad came to pick me up the next morning, I begged them to let me have all of the lambs as pets and never to make me eat them again.

Thus began my journey to vegetarianism.

It started with lamb at aged 6 and slowly as I got older and realised about other animals, I began excluding them from my diet or refusing to eat them.

I then watched a documentary when I was 11 years old about factory farming practices and made the decision to become fully vegetarian. I remember telling my parents and them thinking that it was a phase and maybe some of my friends at school were doing it and it would soon pass, so they played along with it and didn't serve me any meat from that day.

In those days, there were very little vegetarian meat substitutes and my family had little knowledge of vegetarian diets so I ate what the family ate, but without the meat. My mum took me to the doctor and asked if there were any supplements I should be having and he put me on Iron tablets. I have been vegetarian ever since and I am still the only member of my family (immediate and extended) who doesn't eat meat or fish.

So after 25 years of being vegetarian, what made me become vegan? Well I have an allergy to eggs and have never eaten them; I dislike the taste of milk and have not drunk it since I was 5. I very rarely ate yogurts as they tasted too much like milk and have always avoided animal by products, leather, gelatin, animal derived food colourings, rennet, suet and always sourced cruelty-free beauty products since the day I became vegetarian. I only ever ate honey as an ingredient, never on its own and I don’t like wine or beer and so that just left my two vices – chocolate and cheese!

I will get this out of the way now – My name is “Vegan Vox” and I am a cheesaholic!

This is the sole reason that for the last few years every time I met anyone new and described my dietary habits, they would say “oh, so you’re practically vegan then?” And the niggling addict inside me would ignore them and say, but you can’t live without cheese. So I would bury my guilt, avoid reading too much about the dairy industry and carry on eating cheese with everything. And I mean everything. Soft cheese, cheese sauce, cream cheese, cheese spread, flavoured cheese, mature cheese, cheese with crackers, even those awful cheese slices you serve with burgers! I truly believed that even if I could handle switching to dark chocolate I could never give up cheese, and I hear so many other people say the same thing.

So what has changed? Well last year I went to the West Midlands Vegan festival in Wolverhampton and was inspired by the range of choices for vegans available now which didn't even exist when I became vegetarian. There are vegan cupcakes, sausages, spreads, milk and yes...cheese. So I had a long hard think about it and decided to ditch the cheese (and all other dairy) for good in January this year and become fully vegan. It hasn't been easy, and the cheese devil on my shoulder has taunted me several times, but I have made a commitment and if I truly want to be a supporter of animal rights and welfare then it felt hypocritical continuing to eat dairy products.

So why this blog? Well I felt that I cannot be the only one who has fought their cheese addiction or maybe people are still battling theirs and thinking about becoming vegan. Also I was the resident vegetarian expert among friends and family after my quarter of a century commitment so always felt like I had the answers, recipes, knew what to look for on labels etc. Now all of a sudden, I feel like the new kid at school, I am learning as I go along how to veganise my meals, what is and isn't vegan friendly and thought a blog would help others to share in this new journey with me.

Vegan Vox is exactly that a vegan voice, it will be a vegan lifestyle blog, sharing my journey with you. There will be recipes, food reviews, travelling as a vegan posts, restaurant reviews, events, vegan friendly companies I have found or products I am trying, the never ending search for good cheese substitutes and everyday ordinary supermarket items which I have discovered are vegan and how you can build them into any diet or lifestyle. I am not a health freak, I love junk food as well as healthy food, I love puddings and cakes and chocolate, I probably should exercise more but I just want to share with you that anyone can become vegan.

If along the way I trip up or make mistakes with my veganism, please feel free to gently correct me and help me back on my path, I'm still learning. Please don't leave abusive comments or sarcasm. Veganism is about respect for all living beings, that includes humans, which includes me! 

Thank you for sharing in my journey with me. VVx