Food and Health today! Probably the yummiest day of Go Green Week! As soon as I entered the Pear Tree I was overwhelmed by the variety of aromas in the air!
The stalls were even busier today with students attracted to the tasty smells and swarming for a bite!
Student Action
First, I visited our own lovely first year students and had a chat with Josie Concannon. She told me that she has found the Sustainability module extremely interesting and that it now she supports sustainability even more than before. It has influenced her in changing her own ways as well as advocating for sustainable practices. Along with her fellow students, today she promoted healthy food on campus. For a small voluntary donation anyone could have a taste of the amazing dehydrated apples and home made Fairtrade cakes presented in reclaimed cake boxes from Worcester Resource Exchange.
Fair Trade
Then I met Colin and Lorna from Worcester Palestine Friendship who joined us during Go Green Week to discuss the Fairtrade of Palestinian Olive Oil which is carried out by Zaytoun for more than a decade. Olive Oil is a heritage in Palestine, the trees are carried down through the generations and Worcester Palestine Friendship helps Zaytoun to promote and sell their amazing products in Worcestershire. All the profits of the company go to the farmers who grow the olive trees in Palestine and to their families.
Energize Worcester
The guys from Energize Worcester are progressing on their art which looks better and better with the hour. They are restless and nothing would take them off their work (except the tasty cakes of course).
Vegans & Veggies
There were also many goodies given out by Worcestershire Vegans & Veggies who were with us to promote the vegan diet and to let us know that it is not hard to go vegan. From my conversation with them I understood that they see four major reasons to give up on meat and animal products:
1) Environment- according to Vegans & Veggies only 2/3 of the agricultural land used now will be needed if the UK adopted the vegan diet;
2) Caring about animals- the cruelty towards animals held within factory farms and the way they are bred for consumption is outrageous (Vegans & Veggies);
3) Feeding more people- the organisation believes that if land is used to produce crops and with them feed people directly (instead of feeding those to the animals and then using the animals for food) would limit the degradation of the land;
4) Better health- Vegans & Veggies informed me that by adopting the vegan diet people will lower their cholesterol as well as protein (which we consummate in quantities which are higher than what we need).
Food Demo
Finally Andy and Diana demonstrated how cook two amazing and easy recipes from scratch, waste less food and let us sample the dishes they prepared right in front of us.
Andy Stevenson, who is also one of the authors of susthingsout and a lecturer in Graphic Design shared with us his passion for locally produced products which he used to prepare Spicy Burmese Cabbage for us. The dish is “as cheap as chips” with an approximate price of £0.70 per plate. Tasting this extremely easy and fast recipe is a really unique experience, especially for people like me who love spicy food and lots of garlic.
Last but not least, Diana (who joined us on behalf of Love Food, Hate Waste) made Banana Pancakes for us and taught us that food must not be wasted and that we have to limit the food waste we create as much as possible. As students we are all familiar with wasting food and to give us a hand with planning she gave out meal planners, which personally I find brilliant. Who knew that a over ripe banana and JUST and egg can make such yummy pancakes.
