Viva’s Christmas Fair Bristol – 29th November 2014
What a marvellous day at The Viva ‘Vegan’ Christmas Fair in the beautiful sandstone town of Bristol!
For anyone not aware of Viva’s work, they are a vegan registered charity which promotes healthy eating and the awareness of the cruel meat industry.
I have supported Juliette & Tony for about 15 years now and was very excited to come down to sample all the new foods on offer.
Juliette gave an inspiring presentation on the milk industry and it was fabulous to learn some extra facts to why milk is very much a ‘no-no’ when it comes to ethical and healthy eating. Here are some great facts to know about the milk industry:
1) A cow can only produce milk if she has been pregnant. This might be a rather ‘obvious’ thing to say but you would be surprised to how many people think that just because cows have massive udders, they must automatically be natural milk machines – No, sadly they have to be impregnated to produce milk.
2) A cow is milked for 7 months into her 9 month pregnancy which means that all of this milk is carrying hormones which might increase the risk to develop certain cancers which feed off hormones such as breast, ovary and prostate cancers.
3) Her baby suckles for one day and is then removed, often shot with a gun and disposed of. The mother pines badly for the calf as in the wild they stay with the family for many years. She is given a 3 month gap and then re-impregnated.
4) There are 400 million puss cells per litre cow milk due to infections such as mastitis which is rife and very painful for the cow.
5) The human race cannot digest lactose after the age of approx four and this is why ¾ of the worlds population can’t digest the sugars in milk properly. It’s a very western ideology and until recently China never ever used milk to drink and thought us very weird.
6) Baby milk has to be completely changed before we can drink it. Calcium levels have to be dropped as cows need it as they grow fast, whereas humans don’t need the same chemicals. Doesn’t this sort of suggest that it isn’t suitable for us?
The vegan food stands were marvellous and I sampled some delectable vegan chocolates from Cocoafeliz which honestly proved that there was no difference between vegan and dairy chocolates. They were amazing and their website is: www.cocoafeliz.com
Also purchased some great organic superfoods (Maca and Chorella) for my smoothies from LBH Superfoods, as well as some fab lip-balm from ‘Hempish’ and had a catch up with the amazing team from Sea Shepherd. This was very sentimental for me as my mum was engaged to Ben Metcalf, one of the original members of Greenpeace so I am always extremely nostalgic when hearing the news from this offshoot charity founded by Paul Watson who co founded Greenpeace alongside Ben all those years ago in the late 60’s.
All in all, a wonderful day. Remember to buy The Viva! Cookbook here which has a collection of amazing recipes: http://www.viva.org.uk/resources/campaign-materials/book/viva-cook-book
And while you are there, have a quick look at my smoothie section and their latest campaigns.