Vegan

Vegan ice cream in Manchester

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The vegan ice cream news just won’t quit. Check out this vegetarian ice cream shop located in the Manchester neighbourhood of Withington.

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Ice Shack is a dessert parlour with some solid vegan options.

I’ve posted a selection of the vegan menu items below:

Vegan Ice Cream Flavours (isolated in their own vegan freezer)

Coconut/Chocolate/Raspberry/Raspberry and mango/Strawberry/Vanilla/Wild berry/Blackcurrant sorbet/Lemon sorbet/Orange sorbet

Vegan truffles

Dark chocolate/Dark chocolate and ginger/Dark chocolate, lime and chilli

Vegan Cakes and Pastries

Apple pie/Chocolate cake/Lemon Cheesecake/Mango and passion fruit cheesecake/Sponge/Flapjack
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Sounds tasty!

You can like Ice Shack on Facebook, visit their website and follow them on Twitter.

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Inexpensive vegan ice cream

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There are so many vegan ice cream stories to tell, I’m frankly getting tired of relaying them. My main annoyance being all the news relates to the UK and I’m a long way from that part of the world.

My fab friend Mirel sent me the following photos of what she found in her local Morrisons supermarket this week.

With each box priced at just £2, you might just be able to afford to try them all.

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It looks as though a company is making these treats for UK supermarkets to rebrand as their own product. These Morrisons ice creams look very similar to what I reported on from Tesco a short while ago.

Anyway, affordable vegan ice cream for those who want it.

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Part time job with vegan burger company

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Hi there, London.

There is a 2-day a week job being advertised with a vegan burger producer.

Excerpt from the job advert reads:

burger job

More details such as starting hourly pay rate (which is £7 per hour – a couple of quid below suggested London Living Wage of £9.40 per hour) and how to apply can be found by clicking here.

Happy job hunting!

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Brexit and animals

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A few people have asked me what I think the upcoming vote on whether the UK should stay or leave the European Union means for animals.

On one hand, I don’t feel informed or accomplished enough to give a detailed analysis of how the Brexit decision could affect animals. One the other hand, I think it is crucial that people who are voting on June 23, 2106 discuss the situation, share information and debate topics surrounding the referendum.

I have collated a few news and opinion articles on what Brexit could mean for animal welfare reform, animal protection laws and even animal testing policies.

I have included some links for publications and commentators who I deem as divisive and extreme. You should be able to determine these for yourself from the title should you wish not to click on them.

I would also urge vegans and vegan-friendly people who are undecided on their vote to consider broader issues when it comes to Brexit. Of course animals are a major concern (that is why we are all hanging out here to begin with) but I hope your vote takes into count how Brexit might affect human wellbeing, economical security, freedom of movement, food security and countless other considerations.

Basically, I don’t think your entire decision should be based solely around non-human animals but it is certainly a fucking amazingly important topic for you to consider in your decision.

A fairly basic pros vs cons article that mentions EU role in animal testing ban – The Metro

A racist-laden look at how EU exit could save animals from Halal slaughter – Express

80% of animal welfare laws originate from EU – RSPCA

An in depth look at pros and cons in relation to animal laws – Vegan Life Magazine

Brexit would be disastrous for Britain’s farm animals – Guardian

The EU has worked to end cosmetic testing (amongst other positives) – Independent

Would UK have desire to raise welfare standards outside of EU? – Compassion in World Farming

Brexit is a step backwards for animal welfare – Phil Wilson MP

Please add more links in the comment section below. I’m sure there must be many more opinions and articles on this topic.

Happy voting!

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Horses in airports?

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Just when you think you’ve seen it all, along come therapy horses in airports.

OK. I’m going to have to break this down into digestible chunks as this story is not palatable on several levels.

The Transportation Security Authority, the organisation responsible for airport security all over the USA, has recently been in the news for terminating a whole lot of people in order to save money. The TSA thought they could persuade travellers to pay for the express PreCheck lane at security screening. This confident belief led to more than 4,000 airport security screeners losing their jobs which is about 10% of the people in this role.

People have not flocked to the PreCheck lanes as expected resulting in waits of up to three hours in some US airports just to clear security. So lots of people lose their jobs and chaos takes over.

And what do humans do when they create a bad situation? Exploit animals, of course!

This BBC article and this Daily Mail article both highlight not only the loss of income for thousands of people but also how one airport is bringing in ‘therapy ponies’ to help keep people calm as they wait hours to clear security.

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These unfortunate animals are having their hair coloured and are being paraded through hot and crowded airports so frustrated travellers can touch them as a form of relaxation.

If you would like to explain to this airport that animals do not belong in crowded airports, you can reach them on Twitter.

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Why can’t vegans say ‘milk’?

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A member of an online vegan group I am a part of posted the following message. I asked Daniel if he minded me sharing it here in the hope someone can give him legal advice or insight based on their own experiences as a vegan business owner, either in Scotland or around the UK.

Daniel says:

Posting this to see if any vegan business owners have had a similar experience – I run Juice Warrior and today we had our first environmental health inspection in our new Bathgate premises. They are really not happy about us using the word ‘mylk’. We use this because we don’t like using the term ‘milk’ as in the beginning a lot of people thought we were selling dairy milks. We obviously want to completely separate ourselves from the dairy industry.

They have said ‘milk’ is a protected term by the dairy industry, so we are not allowed to use it as our milks don’t contain any dairy. Apparently this has been referred to the FSA and is going to be an issue with all the dairy free milk companies in the future.

They then said we can’t use the term ‘mylk’ as it sounds too much like milk and it’s a made up term. We pointed out that’s a bit ridiculous as there was once a time when ‘Cola’ didn’t mean anything. It really just became an argument over semantics.

The inspector used to work in a meat factory and I feel he had a problem with us from the get go – constantly backing up the meat and dairy industries and trying to tear apart the raw juice/dairy free industry.

Our kitchen and machinery are kept beyond spotless and if you were to walk in it would look like it’s never used, so we pointed out that we found it frustrating that if you were to walk into a meat factory there would potentially be blood and faeces on the floor. He said this doesn’t matter because you can kill all of that in a frying pan…

He may have a point, but we couldn’t help but feel alienated and wished there was more support for vegan businesses. It seems biased that the meat industry can get away with having blood and guts on their floors but we are being warned that if our carrots go near our apples before cleaning, we could be shut down. Obviously, we make sure we separate our roots vegetables from everything else, it was more the way he said it to us.

I read in a magazine lately of a plant based lobby for vegan businesses starting in America – does anyone know if there is anything like this in the UK yet?

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Get in contact with Daniel on his website or via Twitter if you think you can assist.

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How many vegans in Great Britain?

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An email popped up today from The Vegan Society with the following information:

Dietary vegans in Great Britain 542,000

Lifestyle vegans in Great Britain 360,000

The Vegan Society have reported that a survey was carried out earlier this year across England, Wales and Scotland by a professional survey company and the findings determined those are the ‘ballpark’ figures of the number of vegans in Great Britain.

The Vegan Society have extrapolated further findings from the research and have highlighted the following:

  • The results show that well over one and a half million people are vegetarian or vegan.
  • Over half a million people follow a vegan diet.
  • More than a third of a million avoid all animal products. That includes food, clothing and other products.
  • Over half a million vegetarians are looking to reduce their consumption of animal products.
  • There are approaching a million vegetarians and vegans who avoid leather, wool and other animal fibres.
  • There are almost twice as many women than men who are vegan.
  • Of all vegans 42% are in the 15-34 age group compared to only 14% of those over 65.
  • 88% of all vegans live in urban areas against 12% who live in rural areas.

There is apparently more detailed analysis published on the charity’s website but the link was not working for me, so please do share in the comments if you find a functioning link to the full facts and figures.

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100% Vegan Ethiopian Café in London

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Post by:

josh panel

I don’t know how this escaped my attention, but I just found out today that London has its very own vegan Ethiopian restaurant! Located in Dalston (also home to the incredible FED by water which you can read about here, here, here and here!), Andu Cafe has gone to the top of my list of places to visit when I get back to London in July.

Serving up traditional Ethiopian fayre including the delicious teff pancake injera, people are raving about the place on social media. Check out the photos from Instagram below…

Go here, eat food, SO delicious #anducafe #kingslandroad #hackney

A photo posted by elainekingett (@elainekingett) on

#anducafe #ethiopian #vegan #hackney #dalston 🍈🍋🍅😋

A photo posted by Cam (@royalcam23) on

Like Andu Cafe on Facebook.

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Vegan anti-oppression collective

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Have you been wondering how a vegan might consider that their personal choices and the language they employ can be linked to furthering or challenging a wide range of oppressions? Is this something you would like to discuss with other curious vegans in a supportive, safe space?

The vegan community in the UK does a lot of valuable outreach, education and activism with the goal of improving outcomes for non-human animals, but many of us are also coming to understand that our animal-positive activities shouldn’t stand alone from other oppressive concerns.

We can and should be considerate of how our activism can perpetuate negative stereotypes and oppressive forces in the world. We can challenge inequality and inequity related to sexism, queerphobia, ageism, ableism as we fight to improve outcomes for animals. We don’t need to choose which type of oppression we resist and fight to redress, we can work against multiple oppressions at the same time.

So what about a vegan anti-oppression learning collective?

I am hoping to find vegans who are interested in forming a collaborative group of people who want to meet regularly in London (and hopefully in other UK locations) to explore topics of connected oppressions and intersectionality theory via suggested readings, public screenings and meeting guest speakers.

Maybe there is already a group like this operating in the capital, so please let me know if there is.

There is a now a private Facebook group you can join where you can help develop the shape, intentions, shared content and outcomes of the collective. We can start to discuss a safe space policy for the group, how we would like the Facebook page to be managed and who will be willing to take on administration duties for the page and future real life meetings.

If you have been thinking about these topics, join the closed Facebook group to help commence the building of the collective.

UK’s first intersectional vegan conference

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VegFestUK London is hosting the UK’s first pro-intersectionality vegan conference later in 2016. Powerful voices from around the world will gather in London to speak of intersectional theory and how this valuable critical framework (highlighting how an individual can experience multiple, overlapping oppressions) can be applied to the realm of veganism and animal rights.

Read more about the conference here.

One of the key speakers at this conference is Aph Ko, founder of Black Vegans Rock. Click here to read FGV’s recent interview with Aph Ko.

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You can follow VegFestUK on Facebook and Twitter.

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