Author: munchachos

This week it’s National Vegetarian Week, a week in which the vegetarian lifestyle is promoted by various organisations and celebrities.

Are you a vegetarian? Could you ever consider giving up meat? Or do you feel that no meal is complete without a good slab of beef or chicken and that a life without bacon is really not worth living?

Whichever way you’re inclined, no-one can deny the power of the mighty vegetable and his sturdy friend, the fruit. Perhaps if you were thinking of giving up meat, or even reducing your use of meat in cooking, this week would be a good week to do so. 

This year, Stephen Fry and Joanna Lumley (amongst others) are supporting National Vegetarian Week’s pledge to “help save the planet – enjoy veggie food this National Vegetarian week.”

According to the National Vegetarian Week website, one of the best things you can do for the environment is to eat more veggie food.  This is for three key reasons:

Pollution

Livestock causes more pollution than the world’s entire traffic system: between 20 and 50% of the world’s pollution in total is caused by cows, chickens, sheep and pigs bred for slaughter.  This figure is calculated by adding up the methane produced by the animals ‘letting out gas’ and the gases released from manure, the oil burned taking their carcasses to markets (often thousands of miles away), the electricity needed to keep the meat cool, the gas used to cook it, the energy needed to plough and harvest the fields that grow the crops that the animals eat and the water that is pumped for the animals to drink.

Deforestation

Another reason being vegetarian is said to be more eco-friendly is that eating meat causes deforestation.  According to Friends of the Earth, around 6m hectares of forest land a year goes to livestock to grow the crops to feed the cattle.

Poison

Thirdly, industrial-scale agriculture now dominates the western livestock and poultry industries, and a single farm can now generate as much waste as a city.  Manure and urine is funnelled into massive waste lagoons, sometimes holding as many as 40m gallons. These cesspools often break, leak or overflow, polluting underground water supplies and rivers with nitrogen, phosphorus and nitrates.

What can you do?

This year, National Vegetarian Week has recommended 50 different activities to celebrate the awareness week.  They can be found on their website along with lots of different exciting recipes.

Is Munchachos vegetarian?

In a single word: YES! Despite the fact that a few of our snacks do include meat in the title, all of our ingredients are veggie-friendly. So even if you are partaking in National Vegetarian Week, you can still enjoy a Long Tong Noodle!

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This month it’s National Smile Month, run by the Oral Health Foundation.  The premise of the event is to promote the importance of the health of your teeth and your mouth in general. Do you brush your teeth twice a day? Do you have a low sugar diet? Do you regularly visit the dentist?

Gum disease, bad breath and loss of teeth are not just issues amongst the elderly. If you don’t look after your teeth properly it can happen amongst the very young.  Latest figures from PHE (Public Health England) reveal that a child in England has a rotten tooth removed in hospital every 10 minutes. That’s almost 40,000 a year.  In fact, tooth decay is the most common reason for hospital admissions in 5 to 9 year olds.  And this can all be avoided!

Snack swap!

The key thing is to reduce the consumption of foods and drinks that contain sugars.  Apparently half the sugar children are having comes from snacks and sugary drinks. Swap them for lower sugar alternatives.

At Munchachos we work with a nutritionist to ensure that all of our snacks adhere to a low sugar rule. We have observed the guidelines created by the government to make sure that the sugar level is enough to keep the snacks tasty but not so much that it will cause damage in the long run. 

The power of the smile

A very happy May Day one and all! Today is a day that signifies the arrival of the good weather and, happily, it brings with it a Bank Holiday on the closest following Monday.  But what are the origins of the day, why should we be prancing around a Maypole and what on Earth are those Morris dancers wearing?

May Day is said to be a time of love and romance – it’s when people celebrate the coming of summer with lots of different customs that are expressions of joy and hope after a long winter. 

May Day celebrations have been carried out in England for over two millennia beginning with the Romans who celebrated the festival of Flora, goddess of fruit and flowers, which marked the beginning of summer. It was held annually from April 28^th to May 3rd.

Traditionally, in rural England, May Day is marked with a host of fair weather activities, the most popular being Maypole Dancing, Morris Dancing and the crowning of the May Queen.

Maypole Dancing

On May Day, it was customary to cut down young tress and stick them in the ground to celebrate the arrival of the summer.  People danced around the tree poles holding the ends of colourful ribbons that were tied at the top of the pole.  The end result was a beautifully plaited pattern of colour.

Morris Dancing

Morris Dancing is another traditional May dance. It’s danced to a jolly piece of music played on the accordion with a hand drum beat. The costumes vary depending on the part of the country you’re in but it’s often colourful and their faces are often painted – probably originating as a form of disguise.  The dances are performed in a circle facing each other and, as they often have bell-pads tied at their knees, the dances are often very loud and cheerful-sounding!

The May Queen

The May Queen is a girl who is crowned with a floral garland at a May Day parade. She will often make a speech to commence the celebrations.

INTERESTING FACT: when people are in trouble and radio for help they often use the phrase “Mayday Mayday.”  This actually derives from the French “m’aidez” (pronounced Mayday) which literally means “help me!”

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Today it is World Earth Day, a day set up to shine a light on the importance of protecting our planet. This year it’s EVEN MORE relevant given the Central London ‘Extinction Rebellion’ demonstrations that have been taking place over the last week.

Where did the idea begin?

The first Earth Day was set up by peace activist John McConnell at a 1969 UNESCO conference in San Francisco.  His objective was to honour the Earth and the concept of peace.  Nowadays the day focuses on the danger we pose to the Earth and how we can act to create a better future for our planet and the generations to come.

What can you do?

The United Nations published ‘The Lazy Person’s Guide to Saving the World’ in which it pinpoints small actions which, when carried out by many, could make a huge difference.

Here are some suggestions from the guide:

• Save electricity by plugging appliances into a power strip and turning them off completely when not in use, including your computer.
• Stop paper bank statements and pay your bills online or via mobile.
• Buy minimally packaged goods.
• Get a rug — carpets and rugs keep your house warm and your thermostat low.
• Take short showers. Bathtubs require gallons more water than a 5-10 minute shower.
• Composting food scraps can reduce climate impact while also recycling nutrients.
• Let your hair and clothes dry naturally instead of running a machine. If you do wash your clothes, make sure the load is full.
• Eat less meat, poultry, and fish. More resources are used to provide meat than plants.
• Plan meals — use shopping lists and avoid impulse buys. Don’t succumb to marketing tricks that lead you to buy more food than you need, particularly for perishable items.
• Bike, walk or take public transport. Save the car trips for when you’ve got a big group.
• Use a refillable water bottle and coffee cup.

Are you honouring World Earth Day today? If so, how? And do you think you could encourage your friends and family to do any of the above?

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Passover, which is known as ‘Pesach’ in Hebrew, begins this Friday.  Passover is a Jewish holiday that celebrates the Israelites being freed from slavery in Egypt.

During the first two nights, Passover is celebrated with a home ritual known as the Passover seder.  The seder, which means ‘order’ in Hebrew, is celebrated around a dinner table and includes the retelling of the Passover story from the Torah (which is the Old Testament.)  The food and wine is blessed, Passover symbols are deciphered and freedom and social justice is discussed, all while singing and eating takes place.

Food is enormously important at Passover and carries much symbolism, history and culinary expression. Here are a few of the platters that are served and what they represent:

Matzah

Matzah is unleavened bread eaten during Passover. When the Israelites learned that the pharaoh had given them leave to exit Egypt, they didn’t want to wait for their bread to rise in case he changed his mind.  Therefore matzah symbolised the Jewish people’s hasty transition to freedom.

Karpas

Karpas is a green leafy vegetable, usually parsley, which represents the fact that the Jews initially thrived when they got to Egypt.  It was only with the commencement of the reign of a new pharaoh, who was threatened by the growing size of the Israelite community, that they were enslaved.  This turn of events is commemorated during the Seder by dipping the karpas into bitter salt water, which represents the tears shed by the Israelites.

Charoset

This is a paste-like mixture of fruits, nuts and sweet wine or honey.  It is symbolic of the mortar used by the Israelite slaves when they laid bricks for the pharaohs’s monuments. 

If you have any Jewish friends, don’t forget to say ‘chag sameach’ to them which translates to ‘happy festival’ and is the Hebrew equivalent of ‘happy holidays.’

Maybe we should consider a new Israeli Munchachos snack based on one of these traditional meals? What do you think? Or do you have any suggestions for our next country of inspiration?

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