The Unicorn! 🥑

The Unicorn is not the cute animal with a horn on its head, but an amazing shop that sells lots of cool things from food to toiletries. It started in 1994 and is run as a 'co-operative' which means that a big group of people own and manage it together, not like Sainsbury's or Tesco.  It's also completely meat free, meaning everything they sell is completely suitable for vegans. Unfortunately, it's not a chain and is only in Manchester.

As I said, they sell lots of food, like fruit, vegetables, muesli, nuts, dried fruit, spices etc.  They sell lots of varieties of things like apples and potatoes and the thing is, they tell you exactly what they're the thing they are best for, like mashed potatoes or roast potatoes. They also sell their spices in bulk (so not in the tiny jars you'd find in normal shops) so you have to buy bigger packets.  You can also buy ethical* toiletries like shampoos, and bars of soap, tooth pastes, conditioner etc.

The website is here and shows you recipes and the produce they sell.

Since I've shown you the website, there's not really much more to say😂. Thanks for reading and please come back next week for more!

Violet
        xxx

*ethical - avoiding activities or organisations that do hard to people or the environment
    

Milkmen (or women!) 🥛

This post isn't going to be for the lovely vegans out there because it's going to be all about milk! However, you could still read it, couldn't you?...

Since I can remember, I've had a milkman coming to my door, with glass bottles full of milk to drop off. And then, when we'd finished our bottle, we'd wash it out and put it outside for the milkman to collect and reuse. We only ever got plastic milk cartons when we knew we'd run out before we got some from the milkman. Some people are surprised when I say I have a milkman, but when I was smaller, I thought everyone had one! Actually, ours in London won Milkman of the Year in 2018! 😅

You probably know why having a milkman is better for the environment, but I'll say anyway. First of all, you get it in glass bottles instead of plastic ones and second of all, as I said, you wash them out and put them outside for your milkman to collect and fill up with milk to reuse again (well for me you did) ♻.

Some even deliver non-dairy milk and juice in glass bottles too! You've just got to check who your local milkman is and say when you would like your milk delivered.

Thanks for reading this post, I hope you liked it! See you next week,

Violet
        xxx

Leftover food buffet! 🥘

Unless you are a very close friend, a family member, or already do this, you're probably wondering what a 'leftover buffet' is. Basically, it is where you get all the leftover food that you've made or bought all week (that isn't out of date) and put it out for everyone to finish off for lunch or dinner. Of course, you have to have saved the food you haven't eaten to do this.

We have been doing leftover buffets forever, not joking😀 and we mostly have them on the weekend. If you don't have enough leftover food, you can always cook up some eggs and toast or sausages that were in the freezer to put with it. However, for us, we usually have a lot of food left (unless we take leftovers for lunch at work/school) and have a nice filling lunch, usually with lots of variety!

That's another thing you could do, take in leftovers for your lunch at school/work. If you're not too picky it would probably be rather cold but it still tastes nice!

What my mum does is - when we have lots of vegetables or something - she always adds them to soup or pasta sauces and for the soup, she whizzes it up, so you have no idea what's in it! Also, if we buy some cool vegetable to work with, we look online for some recipes to use it with, and they don't have to be hard!

It is said that one third of food produced for humans in the world - about 1.3 billion tonnes - gets lost or wasted every year. If you're making sure that you're finishing your food and not throwing it away (unless it's moldy) than we could make that huge number go down. Remember, there are people out there that would treasure their leftovers😟. 

Thank you for reading this post, I do really love leftover buffets and I hope people will listen to me because I feel like people need to stop throwing small or big amounts of food away. Anyway, thank you for your time and see you next week!

Violet

         xxx

Plogging!🚯

When I feel like my neighborhood needs it, I like to go litter picking. It makes time go faster, while doing something good. Then, my mum found out about something called plogging, and it sort of changed my whole thought of litter picking.

The day of my plogging:
When we arrived at the place where we were litter picking and there were quite a few people there. We were sorted into three groups: the running group, the walking group (fast) and the other walking group (slower). We'd just travel round and pick up things. When we had finished, we all joined together and put all our rubbish into different piles, like cans, glass bottles and un-recyclable things. And I was shocked,🤯 like really surprised, about all the things we picked up in one park. I really enjoyed it too because we got to meet new people and we all were happy.  The plogging website is here if you want to see it.

People may think that picking up litter is disgusting and it sometimes is, but it depends what you're picking up. However, it's always doing something better for the planet because you are repairing the world after some people have been lazy and dropped their stuff on the floor🤷‍♀️. You can easily pick up some litter on a walk in the countryside with some garden gloves and a bin bag, easy.

You may have heard of this: but you can also do a two minute clean up whenever you go to the beach. It is just plogging just for a shorter time, but still, it's good.

I know that people won't really want to go litter picking because some places are quite disgusting but I rather enjoy it (as I've said many times😂) and you just have to remember that you're doing it for the world. Thanks for reading this, I was waiting to write about plogging for ages! Anyway, see you next Sunday!

Violet
         xxx