Fresh Vegan Resource Centre

We have created the ultimate tool for both activists and transitioning vegans. We’ve put everything you need in one place to make it easier to direct people to the information they need.

The main objection we hear: “convenience”. This resource centre is designed to be a positive learning hub that will direct you to a vegan replacement for any product you currently use!

Below you will find everything you need to complete your journey to veganism - from the absolute basics like the definition (understanding this is absolutely crucial!) all the way through to secret ingredients you’d never think were animal derived.

Diet

Veganism is often misrespresented as just a diet. The reason we focus on diet is because this is where most of the abuse we see in animals comes from. With over 70 billion land animals factory farmed and 2 trillion fish killed worldwide every year, more animals are killed than people have ever existed in just 4 weeks.

If this sounds like something you don’t want to be a part of, then the websites below will help get you started:

To guide you through a change in routine, Challenge 22 offers mentor support to ensure a switch to veganism is smooth and easy.
Accidentally Vegan UK keeps you up-to-date with popular vegan products available across the UK. You’ll be surprised about how much vegan food you’re already eating!
iVegan for iOS or for Android scans a product’s barcode and let’s you know if that product is vegan or not - you haven’t even got to read the ingredients yourself any more! (though I still do out of habit!)
Barnivore — Alcohol? I know what you’re thinking, and don’t worry, we can still have a good drink! Usually the ingredients in alcohol are vegan, it is the filtration process that lets it down! Sometimes drinks are filtered through fish swim bladder, ‘isinglass’. This is becoming less and less common but is still something to look out for!
Cronometer is a nutrition app This is great to use whilst getting started. It’ll help you keep track of all the nutrients you’re taking in, allowing you to correct any deficiencies you may, but almost certainly won’t, encounter.

Ingredients to go for

Vegan Shopping List Liz Cook Nutrition Chart

Ingredients to avoid

I’m old school and find it easier to check labels myself, as I’ve been practising for years! Checking labels becomes second nature as most of the ingredients we avoid are highlighted as allergens. However, there are a few secret ingredients that fly under the radar and will end up in your stomach if you’re not careful!

Meat
Milk/whey/dairy/lactose
Egg
Fish/Shellfish
Honey

Secret Ingredients to avoid

Gelatin is made from animal collagen — a protein that makes up connective tissues, such as skin, tendons, ligaments, and bones
L cysteine – an amino acid used to prolong shelf-life in products such as commercial bread – can be found in duck and chicken feathers and cow horns, but most that’s used in food comes from human hair. It has been reported that most of the hair used to make L-Cysteine comes from China, where it’s gathered from barbershops and hair salons.
E120(i)/carmine is a pigment produced by boiling certain types of scale insects.
E120(ii)/cochineal extract
Supplemented vitamin D3 (sometimes just called vitamin D), often found in cereals as lanolin, also called wool yolk, wool wax, or wool grease, is a wax secreted by the sebaceous glands of wool-bearing animals. Lanolin used by humans comes from domestic sheep breeds that are raised specifically for their wool.
Beeswax

Cookbooks

BBC Good Food has a list of the Best Cookbooks for this year. We can also recommend:

“BOSH! have a burning desire to show the world just how easy it can be to eat plants. Their inventive food creations reached more than half a billion people in just their first year.
BOSH! are committed not only to making an impact on the climate, but to supporting diversity in all of their work.“ Bosh!

Meat replacements

Non-Vegan Companies with Good Products

Clothing

Instead of us writing about why this is wrong, have a watch:

Below you can check out different animal rights t-shirts and accessories to spread the message without even opening your mouth!

The future is vegan, and science is keeping up! Here’s a few innovative clothing materials that are being developed:

Mylo, who make leather-like material from mycelium, part of fungi.
Desserto, who make material from cacti.
Piñatex, who make material from pineapple leaves.
Thamon, who use fallen leaves to produce accessories.
Hemp Fabric, who use hemp fibres to produce wool-like material.
PETA also have a longer list of great materials.

Household

Products like disinfectant sprays, washing up liquid, laundry detergent etc.

Beauty

Animal testing in cosmetics is often forgotten. Fortunately, crueltyfreekitty has developed a comprehensive list of not only companies that don’t test on animals, but ones that do as well. This includes your household cleaning brands etc.

Favourite perfume/aftershave/fragrance not cruelty free? The amazing company Eden Perfumes will replicate the smell and have it delivered it to your door!

Look out for the Leaping Bunny, which indicates that the product is cruelty free.

If you still need a little help, you can scan barcodes to find cruelty-free products.

Much like secret ingredients in food, cosmetics and household products often contain them too.

These brands also have great vegan ranges (but not all of them are not exclusively vegan):

HSI petition to end animal testing

This petition goes with the above video, made by the Humane Society International, including Taika Waititi, Ricky Gervais, Zac Efron and Olivia Munn.

Release of chimpanzees, 30 years after undergoing experiments

Though the pigs in this video were rescued from animal agriculture, we feel it’s relevant to share the emotion these animals feel. 5000 pigs a year are tested on in the UK.