Things people say when you tell them you're a vegetarian or vegan.

The Vegetarian Belfast Facebook page posted this article up this afternoon and it is something along the lines that I would like to ask my interviewee. It's an article about the questions both vegetarians and vegans both get asked when they tell people about being vegetarian or vegan.

One of my questions will be "How did people first react when you told them about your lifestyle change?" and although it's not the same question, it's very similar because I imagine some people's reactions were along the lines of the questions in the article.

Research Heaven!

The Vegetarian Society are a registered educational charity and have resources from little recipe cards right up to big posters for individuals, schools or parents to order for free. On the order form you have a huge number of options to choose from and there's no minimum or maximum limit to choose from, so you have as little or as much information as you wish. Everything I ordered arrived this Thursday (6th March) and I was shocked (The good shocked!) at how much resources there was, I don't remember everything I ordered, but I was blown away.

Below is a picture of everything I received then I do smaller group photographs of the leaflets/posters and books.

(Everything laid out together)

• Book One: Vegetarianism, a Project Book for Schools that contains nine recipes, a revision sheet, what a vegetarian is and why and information about nutrition.

• Book Two: Serving Vegetarians, this is geared towards restaurant, cafe and caters but if you have friends, family or even your children's friends coming over and they are vegetarian, this is a helpful tool. It contains six recipes, ingredients and meal suggestions and information about working with the society.
  
• Book Three: Veggie Kids' Kitchen, a book for children and young adults that they can read with their parents. It includes ten recipes, safety and hygiene tips for the kitchen and breakfast and lunch ideas for the lunchboxes. 

• Booklet One: Going Veggie... for the taste, that says "these recipes have been developed by chefs at the Cordon Vert Cookery School to inspire you to get cooking. Mouth-watering and satisfying, they each offer a balanced main meal with plenty of protein, iron and other essential nutrients". It contains seven recipes altogether.
  
• Booklet Two: Going Veggie..., is the essential guide for people starting to look into becoming a vegetarian. It includes what a vegetarian is, the first steps, what to buy on a big shop, misconceptions about some products, nutritional advice and information about their approved trademark.

• Three food comparison postcards comparing the nutritional values of certain foods that contain iron, protein and Vitamin B12. 

• Mini Book One: Veggie Guides for Teens (half of the book is for teenagers and when you flip it over and turn it around, the other half is for parents) is for both teenagers and parents. On the teenager side includes what a vegetarian is, tip for success in your new lifestyle, questions that people may ask you to challenge you about vegetarianism and a mini poster about nutrition. On the parent side it contains talking to your child, what you can cook and a helpful starting point for parents.
  
• Mini Book Two: Young Veggie Guide, is aimed at young children and children coming into their teenage ages. It includes a step by step guide into easing into vegetarianism, advice on how to eat when you're not at home, why people are vegetarians and three recipes.

• A pamphlet on the welfare of animals during the Christmas season.
  
• Four large bookmarks with a vegetarian nutritional food plate on the front and on the back of these, is a different recipe.

• A large sheet of pull out cards to give to restaurants and cafe with information on how to make their dessert menus more accessible to vegetarians (with many places not stating whether their desserts are vegetarian friendly or not).

(The front of one of the pull out cards)

(The back of one of the pull out cards.)

• Mini Book One: Meat-Free Made Easy, containing six recipes, a meal planner, ideas for sandwiches and more about the society.
  
• Mini Book Two: Why it's green to go vegetarian, includes information on how becoming vegetarian lowers your own environmental impact.

• A letter from the Vegetarian Society thanking me for contacting them and telling me more about their company.
  
• Mini Book: Healthy Eating for Vegetarians, gives you information on the benefits on a vegetarian diet as well as particular nutrients, a food plate guide, the special needs teenagers, children and pregnant women need and how to become a member of the society and the benefits.
  
• A Folded Poster: V-Healthy, a healthy eating plan with a meal plan and tips and advice on how to do shopping on a budget.
  
• A pamphlet: V-Healthy, this contain six recipes to go along with the eating plan in the bigger poster of the same name.

• An A1 poster of food comparisons with the nutritional values of food vitamins (Very like the food comparisons on the postcards).

• An A1 poster of food comparisons with the nutritional values of food (Very like the food comparisons on the postcards).

(A1 Poster: Enjoy Life, Enjoy Great Food)

• Three A2 posters (held down with other booklets because they were curled) with three different photographs used with the slogan "Your Future Matters")

In terms of research, I know this is just the starting point but I'm so happy with how much information I have that a charity was able to provide! If you want to find out any information about the Vegetarian Society, visit them at http://www.vegsoc.org 

The Vegetarian Society.

Last week I was doing some more research online and I thought the perfect resource for my subject would be The Vegetarian Society website.

According to their website they are "an educational charity working to support, represent and increase the number of vegetarians in the UK who "work constructively with businesses, government agencies, policy makers ad professionals, whilst always remaining independent." They also "rely on membership subscriptions and donations to carry out this vital work"

Below is a screenshot from their website and even on their front page, they offer a lot of information, not only about themselves but about recipes, advice on starting out as a vegetarian, being active and the online community within the website, to name a few.

So far, I have found this website extremely helpful and I haven't even looked through half of it yet. I'll be spending the weekend looking through it more thoroughly and finding out even more about my subject of choice.

The start of scheduling!

My producer Caoimhe and I sat down this Thursday (6th March) and started talking about a production schedule. We drew up a brief schedule (below) and later on that day Caoimhe made up a more professional looking schedule on Word. We made up this smaller schedules just so we could have the set tasks in front of us for each production meeting then we can update it later on that day on the more professional one (which will then go in the production folder).

Online Advertisements.

Tonight I wrote out a small advertisement for my documentary to post on both Gumtree and Facebook. My first option (after a lot of sitting down with myself and deciding what exactly I wanted to do) was to do a possible "Day in the Life" and an interview session with one person and find out about their journey with their lifestyle. Below are post the ads posted on both websites; I'm hoping that I'll hear something back because I'd love to explore and find out about some-one's views, experience and thoughts through the documentary.

(Facebook) 

(Gumtree)

I also tweeted it using the hashtags #vegetarians and #Belfast to make it easier to find if people were interested.

(Twitter)

The Darjeeling Limited.

After "Hotel Chevalier", we researched further into the short film and the next week we watched "The Darjeeling Limited", the film leading on from HC.

It follows the story of three brothers; Peter, Francis and Jack and their journey to find their mother to find out why she didn't attend their father's funeral. It ends up becoming a spiritual journey for all three of them unexpectedly and we discover how each character is dislocated in his own way.

Peter is expecting a baby back home (But he only told Jack this information) and he didn't tell his wife that he was going on the trip before he left. As the story progresses, you can see him worry more and stress about what will happen when he comes home.

Francis has bandages on his head for a majority of the film and we come to understand that he was in a motorcycle accident. He later on says the accident happened on purpose which made me believe that he was trying to kill himself. 

Jack (who was the character that appeared in Hotel Chevalier) is obsessing over his ex-girlfriend (who also appeared in HC) and to try and take away this pain, he sleeps with the stewardess on the train.

The characters are very dislocated within themselves, they think they know what they want but when they look at each other, they can see that no-one knows what they want or how to fix it. They go to India in search of their mother who they have always been very distant from, and they simply think they are going to jump on a train and see her, but like every film, things aren't as simple as you plan them. The film comes with twists and turns, and with each twist, the characters start to question what they are doing with their lives.

(to be updated)

Eating Local.

One of the benefits of researching my documentary idea, is that I get to go and try some new food. I'm not very adventurous when it comes to food in restaurants; you wouldn't exactly see me going for frogs legs but when it comes to food 'on the outside' if that's what you can call it, I'm pretty much up for trying anything.

I first started researching vegan restaurants and found a few Facebook pages, and the first page I came across was for "Check Out My Buns". They aren't a restaurant but they are a gluten free and vegan bakery who sell their goods at St. George's Market every weekend. Back in November, I got tested and was told that I needed to go gluten free immediately because my body couldn't cope with eating gluten, as well as not being able to eat soy or carrots too. So when I found out this company was not only vegan (relating well to my initial research) but that it was also gluten free, I was over the moon. On their "About" Facebook page, they said "Delighted to say we are now an exclusively Gluten/Wheat Free bakery, working in an exclusively gluten and wheat free space". This doesn't so much relate to my subject, but for me personally, it's such a good thing to hear and see from companies, especially since I know that cross-contamination won't happen (Not that I have dealt with this yet).

On Wednesday evening, I placed an order with them and picked up on Saturday afternoon at St. George's Market. I picked up some Cocoa Nut Amazeballs otherwise described as healthy nut/fruit snack balls. They are of course, gluten free and vegan but they're also dairy free, egg free, wheat free and no added sugar (The only sugar that's in them is the natural occuring sugars that comes from the dried fruits). So what you're eating is clean and natural, and isn't full of sugary preservatives. I waited until I got home to take some photographs of them:

They were £5 for 6 which is excellent value for something clean and delicious that caters to you. I've already had two but they're not like other snacks. I cut one in half and I felt satisfied; I didn't get that 'chocolate bar' or 'Jaffa cake' feeling, I didn't need to have another one, it just satisfied my sweet tooth for hours, so if you're thinking six isn't very much, it really is, because these will probably last you until the next week (if you don't share them, of course). They are delicious and I don't mean to say I didn't need to have another one because I didn't like them, because I actually love them, but because they don't have all the rubbish that's in other snacks, they left me feeling like I had something sweet and didn't have an addictive craving to eat the entire set (which normal chocolate or other sweet treats do).

I'm really happy with my first 'local' experience of vegan (and gluten free) food and I'll be venturing back next week to the market to see what else this company have to offer. I say 'local' because apart from fruit and vegetables and the odd cake (when I could eat gluten), I've never really bought local food before, but even just walking around the market, it really opened my eyes to local food, even if I can't eat a large majority of it.

To find out more about them; their website, their Twitter and their Facebook page.