What is the Vegan Cook-along?

With the UN citing strong links between plant based eating and improving climate change and global warming; Transition Stourbridge wants to engage, educate and unite their community by providing Cook-a-long virtual sessions to subscribers wishing to find out more about eating plant based. The Transition Stourbridge team have formed strong links with its local small business partners and by providing our towns businesses the marketing exposure of our network and social media links we hope to provide not only an education platform for plant based dining but also to help our members associate their local Health Food Shop with its owner, or local restaurant with its chefs. We want to make it personal, and to do this we must make our approach accessible for all, even during these current times where we are not all able to be together. 

Did You Know?

Researchers at the University of Oxford found that cutting meat and dairy products from your diet could reduce an individual's carbon footprint by up to 73%. As bad as meat is for your body, it’s equally as bad for the world. The animal agriculture industry is responsible for a whopping 91% of rainforest deforestation, one-fifth of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and other major water and air pollution issues.
Transition Stourbridge have contacted local food technology teachers & lecturers, restaurants, cafes and independent retailers to draw up a future-forward plan which will benefit all walks of our society. We are planning, with our businesses, to make each dish easy to follow, using dried and cheaper styles of ingredients to show that Vegan cooking doesn't need to be daunting or expensive and to signpost subscribers to a 'shopping list' of where to buy their ingredients using local and independent shops in our community. This really is a full community approach!
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We would love to be able to provide one a cook-a-long a week during Veganuary but once we have the platform established we hope this to be a regular feature in order to continue to provide a wellbeing support 'event' to people to aren't able to meet up with friends and family, education in eating plant based dining, but most importantly providing a platform to discuss wider issues of climate change and the impact which it is having on our community as well as the wider transition network.

What's the cost?

We are pleased to be able to announce that we have been successful in a small grant from the National Lottery Fund in partnership with the Transition Network to be able to provide a number of boxes free of charge to those within our community who may need meal advice, want to try Plant based dining but feel they can't afford it, or those who are feeling extremely vulnerable or isolated. We have budgeted £40 per week to be able to offer a number of free boxes to our community; this will be available to our subscribers either through Directly messaging our Transition Facebook page or sending us an email on why they should receive a meal kit box. We will obtain and encourage ingredients and items to be purchased from our local health and zero waste shops and greengrocers in order to further support local businesses.
​Our approach for funding is also, we hope the start, of being able to enable our businesses to interact more with us as a group as well as our community and continue to work as a force for change as we have done throughout the pandemic.