After my confession on Sunday about using non-vegan stock for my soup, I thought surely I’ve got it sussed now – there can’t be any more hidden dangers can there? Then, while I was applying lip balm for what was probably the seventeenth time on Monday, it occurred to me it probably wasn’t vegan. There weren’t any ingredients on the tube so I did a bit of a Google and, yep, it contained beeswax and therefore wasn’t vegan. So that meant I’ve failed five out of five Vegan Mondays so far. It also meant when I did my Vegan Month five years ago, I almost certainly failed every single day of it. Bummer.
But, then, aha! I thought, I’ve got a tube of lip balm given to me at VegFest the other week and all products at VegFest have to be vegan. It’s the law and everything.
So, I went downstairs (I have lip balm in every room, every bag and every pocket) and retrieved my vegan lip balm. Thing is though, when I checked the ingredients, it contained the dreaded beeswax. But how could this be when I got it at VegFest?
I emailed VegFest (letting them know it was only a slight niggle to me as I’m not actually vegan, just a mere vegetarian, but thought they should probably know) and Tim – the organiser – replied immediately apologising, saying yelp.co.uk (who’d given me the lip balm as a freebie for signing up to the mailing list) had signed a declaration stating they’d only bring vegan products and he’d make sure this never happened again. Naughty yelp.co.uk.
So, I went into town to buy some vegan lip balm. I went into The Body Shop and asked if they had any. One of the assistants said yes, they’re all suitable but another assistant peeled back the label of one and saw beeswax and put it back. She picked up another one, peeled back the label and said this one’s fine, there’s no beeswax in it. Yay, I thought, that’s Vegan Monday re-veganised.
I got home, peeled back the label to have a look for myself and saw beeswax clearly stated on it. Sigh.
Oh well, I’ll buy some online.
Anyway, enough about my lip balm dilemma. Here’s what I ate for this week’s Vegan Monday.
Vegan stew and dumplings
It’s a stew I made for the first time last year but this time I made my own dumplings using Tesco’s own vegetable suet (which is vegan).
The photo above is from last year’s blog post (which is also where you’ll find the recipe). I made the stew last week and this week had the leftovers with Linda McCartney sausages and green beans.
Even The Meat Eater didn’t feel the need to un-vegan it for a change.
