Vegan veracity

A few years ago I attended Veganfest in Leeds, Yorkshire. At the time I was a committed vegetarian and only mildly curious about being vegan. The festival opened my eyes to what vegans are all about but at the time it seemed quite radical. This year I plan to visit again and learn a bit more.

During the intervening years I have picked up information along the way. Supermarkets have got better at selling products, ingredients and ready meals, restaurants are catering for vegans and there is more about Veganism in the media.

Some foods you may think are vegan are actually not. Honey is actually a bee by-product and many bees are mass pollinated using a method called migratory beekeeping. This then affects many fruit and vegetables.

Many wines, beers and ciders use isinglass (from fish bladders) in the clarifying process. Gelatin can be used in some sherries and ports as well as in desserts, sweets and medication. Cochineal and shellac can also be found in sweets.

Bone char is sometimes used in the sugar making process and don't forget what bone china is made from!

Vegan bread may still have various E-numbers derived from animals.

What I probably hadn't realised was how hard it is to avoid animal products in everyday life. They seem to be in everything including shampoos, conditioners (both hair and fabric) and medication. Also LCD screens on phones, televisions, tablets and computers use animal cholesterol. I have no idea where you can buy vegan versions.

If you're interested in finding out more you can go along to a vegan festival near you. Leeds has two dates this year - Saturday June 6th and Saturday 29th November.

Voting Vegetarian

6th February this week marks the 100 year anniversary of men and women over the age of 30 being eligible, for the first time, to vote.

This has relevance, for me, from several angles. Firstly, as a woman, I am indebted to the suffragettes who paved the way and fought for freedom and equality for women.

Secondly, I am from Leeds and one of the staunch freedom fighters and associate of Emmeline Pankhurst was Leonora Cohen, also from Leeds. She was known as "The Tower Suffragette" who threw a crow bar at the case surrounding the Crown Jewels in an attack on the establishment. She fought for equality for women throughout her life and in 1928 all women over 21 were given the right to vote.

Thirdly, Leonora Cohen was a vegetarian from the age of 5. Whether this was a conscious decision or whether it was because meat was hard to come by, we don't know. She even used food as a weapon during her stay at His Majesty's Pleasure in 1913 and went on hunger strike, depriving herself not only of food but water too. After that she and her husband moved to Harrogate and opened a Vegetarian Boarding House. During the meat rationing of 1917/1918 the Government used prominent figures such as Leonora to spread propaganda for meat-less meals.

Even in the 1970s, with a resurgence of feminism, she was interviewed about her years of activism as a freedom fighter. Coincidentally this was the hippy-age decade when whole food shops increased, meat and dairy consumption were low and people ate more wholegrains and vegetables. It is interesting to note that the increased use of freezers brought women a different kind of freedom at this time with frozen food shops opening and working women cooking food in batches and freezing to save time. 

Many papers have been written posing the question of vegetarianism being linked to militant and feminist behaviours. It is believed that vegetarianism and the women's movement are complimentary ways of creating an ideal world.

It may also be worth noting that this valiant vegetarian lived to be 105 years old.