Veganism is proving extremely popular in today’s modern millennial world, with several people moving away from a meat and dairy-based diet to an entirely plant-based one. On a daily basis, we are learning the importance of a vegan diet, recent studies show the health and environmental benefits of going plant-based. Meatless Mondays are now becoming a thing and with sustainability at the heart of everything we do, Vegan Month seemed an appropriate time for us all to change our lives and dabble in the plant-based world.
We all agreed that we would just try it for one week only and it was up to the team to decide how many of their meals a day they would follow a vegan diet. As our resident ‘Green Guru’ Victoria is already vegan, she, of course, opted for a life of saving the planet. Alex and Hannah opted to make every meal vegan and Kat, Sasha and Nicola opted for vegan lunches.
We swapped eggs and bacon for baked beans and mushrooms, milky coffees for oat milk lattes and we all slashed our daily chocolate intake. As a venue that understands the importance of a plant-based diet, we were very lucky to have an array of options for lunches. We all enjoyed tarragon and mushroom sausage wellington, sweet potato shepherd’s pie, butternut squash soup and black bean quesadillas with vegan cheese. Vegan week proved a little more challenging for Alex and Hannah who were forced to get more creative with their meals at home to have a tasty dinner.
As a cheese and chocolate-loving team, we thought the challenge would be quite a shock to the system, but it was actually enjoyable for everyone. Kat said: “We are extremely lucky to work in a venue that creates tasty, innovative and delicious vegan food and this has definitely helped us enjoy and be inspired to start eating more vegan dishes.” Not only was there something delicious to choose from every day but we also got a chance to have food cooked for us by CH&Co’s very own vegan chef, who prepared us tofu and seaweed cake with roasted aubergine, tahini and rice noodles.
After a week of changing our diets, we felt we had done our bit to start helping the planet but was the tasty food enough to turn everyone completely plant-based…
We all agreed it enabled us to eat healthier and think more about what we are putting into our bodies. Sasha agreed that we all will do our bit for the environment and look at how many times we are eating meat and dairy, but we won’t be fully vegan anytime soon. Every small step to help the planet is a step in the right direction. Meatless Monday’s is next on the cards for the team but thankfully in the meantime, we have our Well-Grounded package, our resident vegan and a number of sustainable initiatives :)!