I was thrilled down to my organic cotton socks when I heard that the Vegan Society of Aotearoa New Zealand had been revived. Perfect timing for my arrival in this beautiful part of the world.
The dedicated folks have wasted not one minute since their relaunch on World Vegan Day (November 1), getting fluorescent tans in some of the country’s big-chain supermarkets in the effort to sort through products that are helpful and harmful—all while making veganism more accessible the public and to those flirting with the idea of living animal-product free.
The result is The Big Book of Vegan Products, which lists, you guessed it, all vegan-friendly products available in supermarkets nationwide. It includes a huge range of crackers, biscuits, cereal, desserts, ready meals and convenience foods. It’s also free to download.
“We want to demonstrate how easy it is to eat ‘normal’ food on a vegan diet. You don’t need to go to a specialist store or spend a lot of money,” said co-ordinator Alice Leonard. “People don’t have control over the environment but they do have control over their diet. Veganism is a solution to the environmental crisis as well as health issues and animal welfare concerns.”
The proactive peeps also have plans to develop a supermarket tour video, a ‘vegan-approved’ tick for food products and branch out in local communities through stalls and market days. Watch this space!
For those living outside the Land of the Long White Cloud, check out The Vegan Society international site to see what initiatives your local branch is undertaking. Better yet, get involved!
Christopher Drummond is a fabulous make-up artist to the stars (and ex-model) who actually cares about what’s in the products we gloop all over ourselves.
My rules of thumb when it comes to beauty are 1) if it’s not vegan, don’t touch it and 2) if you can’t eat it, don’t wear it. I was oh-so happy to hear Christopher feels exactly the same. His cosmetics line, Christopher Drummond Beauty is 100% natural, vegan and organic (insert thunderous applause here).
Here are Christopher’s hot tips on how to transition your beauty cupboard from chemical-laden to naturally wonderful (and check out the video below):
1. Pick five ingredients that you will not compromise on: You need to do your research on “bad” cosmetic ingredients, first (start with the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and the Cosmetic Safety Database, these are great starting points).
2. Be diligent: Do not use the ingredients that you have promised yourself you will not use. No matter what, stay away from those five ingredients. Christopher’s are parabens, artificial colours, artificial fragrance, phthalates, and petroleum.
3. Educate yourself: Take the cosmetics you already own, read the ingredient list, and make a small list of ingredients that you don’t know. Then, research these ingredients to see what these ingredients are, and what they do. You’ll be surprised.
4. Talk to people: Spread your new found knowledge to friends and family.
5. Continue Your Education: Some cosmetic companies thrive on keeping consumers in the dark about what they are doing with ingredients. Don’t let them succeed! Empower yourself.
As I was pondering what to write about today, I received an email from San Francisco’s Cafe Gratitude, a wonderful little eatery in the city’s Mission District, where being grateful—and expressing it—is as common as their communal tables.
With menu items such as “I am Beautiful”, “I am Eternally Blessed” and “I am Berry Awesome” (with the waiter yelling across the room to you: “Vegan Girl, You are Beautiful” when serving up your order), it’s little wonder this place has become a must-visit, and sanctuary, for raw food vegans and the curious alike.
But just when I thought the cafe’s mission, service and food couldn’t get any better. I just learned it can. Each year, for the past five years, Cafe Gratitude hosts a FREE Thanksgiving dinner for vegans (between 11am and 3pm), with ingredients supplied by local vendors.
It made me think about what I’m doing to give back and how I can do more to brighten someone’s day, even just once a week. So now I’m off to research some volunteer opportunities, and grateful to Cafe Gratitude for giving me the nudge.
Check out some of these volunteer organisations near you:
New Zealand
Volunteer Now
Volunteer Service Abroad
Australia
Volunteering Australia
Australian Volunteer Search
UK
USA
Photo courtesy of Taniamarie.com
I just signed up to Alicia Silverstone’s website, The Kind Life. If you thought being vegan meant never eating cheese again, think again. Check out her blog about delicious gourmet vegan cheese from Dr Cow!
This non-dairy, organic cheese is made from 100% raw, organic nuts, with home-made acidophilus and a pinch of royal pink Himalayan salt. There are also zero preservatives, stabilisers, artificial ingredients or additives of any kind. Now that’s my kinda cheese. Oh how I wish it were available outside the States…
It’s great that more and more companies are coming out with vegan product lines. But just because no animals were harmed in the making of these lipsticks, moisturisers and the like, does it mean they’re good for you? Not always.
Unless the ingredients are natural and organic, chances are you could be slapping man made chemicals on your bod. These chemicals are absorbed through the skin, into the bloodstream and contribute to toxicity that can lead to various dis-eases. Yikes. Whoever coined the phrase “beauty is pain” was right on more than one level.
The Environmental Working Group has a comprehensive list, called The Cosmetics Database, that’s well worth keeping handy. It features many of the products we’ve all come to know and love, complete with their toxicity/carcinogen level. You’ll never look at your mascara the same again.
Vegan Peace also has a comprehensive listing of ingredients and products that can help determine if your beauty products are indeed vegan friendly. Then it’s just a matter of determining which of those are human friendly.
A great natural beauty line worth Googling is Living Nature, which is made “of” New Zealand and is low on the scale of harm according to The Cosmetics Database.
Better yet, find beauty fixes right from your own kitchen. Here’s a handy how-to intro from The Green Dove.
Bursting the Beauty Bubble
So a quick trip to the supermarket to pick up some vegetable stock, turned into a marathon label-reading jaunt. I was shocked to see 99 percent of the vege stock included animal products — namely milk. What gives? Call me daft, but I can’t see any good reason for marrying these two products to make stock: I mean, come on, vegetables and milk?
A little investigating below eye level turned up just the gem I needed. Rapunzel’s vegan vegetable bouillon with sea salt (see below) boasts organic ingredients with no animals involved in the making.
This little trip affirmed to me why it’s so important to read labels with an eagle eye, even on products I wouldn’t have dreamed contained animal ingredients.
