It's National Vegetarian Week (21-27 May), and this year the people behind the veggie week are celebrating breakfast as an essential part of everyone's day.

The Vegetarian Society has asked some well-known faces to share their favourite vegetarian breakfasts, and here they are:

Dave Spikey, comedian, actor and writer - "Eggs Florentine."

Fiona Phillips, presenter and journalist - "My favourite veggie breakfast is scrambled eggs with Marmite on sourdough toast"

James Willstrop, the World No 1 squash player - "I'd go for quinoa porridge with vanilla soy milk, agave, currants, blueberries and pecans."

Alan Titchmarsh, gardener, presenter, author - "Porridge and honey - every morning bar Saturday or Sunday when the only veg on my plate is baked beans .....!"

George Galloway, Member of Parliament - "I almost always have a veggie breakfast -usually cereal, followed by fruit, with wholemeal toast and loads of black coffee."

If you need a bit of inspiration, The Vegetarian Society has loads of recipes on their website, we particularly like the sound of the 'nice but naughty fruit compote' - it is allegedly perfect for those wanting to detox:

Nice but Naughty Fruit Compote

Serves 4
Preparation time 10 minutes
Cooking time 25 minutes
Can be vegan*

Ingredients

Compote:

2 apples, peeled, cored and sliced

200g ready to eat prunes, sliced

30g sultanas

200ml apple juice

Yoghurt mixture:

50g blueberries or blackberries (reserve a few for the topping)

200g zero fat Greek yoghurt (or soya yoghurt for vegan option*)

Topping:

75g oats

50g chopped hazelnuts

Pinch of nutmeg or cinnamon

Method:

Place the compote ingredients into a large pan and gently simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Fold the blueberries into the yoghurt and set aside.

Place the oats, nuts and nutmeg or cinnamon into a non-stick pan. Gently heat for five minutes, stirring from time to time.

To serve, share out the fruit into four dishes, add a little yoghurt then top with the oat mixture and the reserved blueberries.

For more delectable breakfast recipes visit www.nationalvegetarianweek.org.

Now in its twentieth year, National Vegetarian Week is the annual awareness-raising campaign promoting inspirational vegetarian food and the benefits of a meat-free lifestyle. Across the UK there are special menus, events, offers, promotions and discounts - they're all listed in the what's happening calendar at www.nationalvegetarianweek.org.

Loved the delicious recipes the chefs prepared at the Pronamel Kitchen? Or maybe you couldn't come along to the healthy cooking demonstrations at The Vitality Show? Either way, you don't want to miss out on these healthy video recipes.

Passion fruit curd and Greek yoghurt meringues

Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 2 hours
Serves: 6
Ingredients
8 passion fruit
100g caster sugar
2 eggs, plus 2 egg yolks
25g unsalted butter
4 eggs, separated
250g caster sugar
1 tsp cornflour
200ml Greek yoghurt

Method
1 Preheat the oven to 130°C/250°F/Gas 1 and line two baking sheets with baking parchment.
2 Put the egg whites in a large, clean bowl and whisk, using an electric beater, until soft peaks form. Gradually add the sugar, a spoonful at a time, whisking continuously, until all the sugar has been incorporated and is dissolved and the mixture is thick and glossy. Beat in the cornflour.
3 Taking a big spoon, spoon dollops of the meringue in lines onto the baking parchment, leaving about 2 cm in between for expansion.
4 Put the meringues in the oven and bake for 2 hours until crisp, then remove from the oven and transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
5 To make the passion fruit curd, halve the passion fruit and scoop the flesh and seeds into a saucepan. Add the sugar, eggs and egg yolks and whisk until well combined, then put the saucepan over a medium heat, and stir slowly for 8/10 minutes until the egg mixture thickens.

Serving
When the curd and meringues have cooled, pile up on plates, starting with a meringue then topping with the curd and Greek yoghurt.

Two weeks into my newfound pescetarianism, I've had some negative comments (mostly from people who don't really eat much greens or fish in general), but I'd like to think that's just ignorance. Overall most of my friends and family have been extremely supportive, and when I said no to lamb for Easter lunch at a friend's place they dished up salmon instead.

I am now doing my part and am feeling much better for it (am not missing meat much to be honest), and this latest piece of research will certainly make me think more than twice about returning to my carnivorous past.

New research warns that meat eaters in developed countries will have to cut their meat consumption by 50% to avoid the worst consequences of future climate change.

According to guardian.co.uk, a study published in Environmental Research Letters warns that we have to make drastic changes in both food production and at the dinner table by 2050 to prevent 'catastrophic global warming'.

Food production and the fertilisers used in farming are responsible for a significant share of the global warming that causes climate change. Only by cutting the use of fertilisers by 50% and persuading consumers in the developed world to stop eating so much meat can climate change be prevented, researchers are now warning.

As most people in the developed world consider meat a staple part of their diet (see mention above) it will not be an easy task to change this behaviour. Even more worryingly, in developing economies like China and India meat consumption is now rising along with prosperity.

Artificial meat could be a solution, and the fact is that, with a rapidly expanding population, we simply can't afford to continue to consume the volume of meat as we're currently doing.

While I'm not saying that everyone should stop eating meat altogether - some of my friends have said they never could - I do wish people did think more about where their food is coming from, how farming is impacting our planet and be more aware of their actions. It is all part of a chain: eating less meat would reduce the demand for fertilisers to grow feed crops for cattle and pigs. A reduction in demand for meat would reduce the number of farm animals required, which in turn would reduce the amount of manure produced - fertilisers and animal manure causes nitrous oxide which is the most potent of the greenhouse gases causing climate change.

What can be done to reduce meat consumption? What should governments do?

I, personally, can't help but think now that steak, as yummy as I still think it can be, was once a bull like Ferdinand...

New research commissioned by Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson has found that, despite promises from the confectionery giants, little progress has been made to reduce card and plastic waste and improve recyclability associated with the popular Easter eggs.

80 million Easter eggs are bought every year which generate an estimated 3,000 tonnes of UK waste (Wrap), and the 2012 Easter Egg Packaging report shows the percentage of Easter egg boxes that is taken up by the actual chocolate egg (that's what we all want really) has not been reduced from last year's 38%.

The report also criticises some manufacturers for failing to ensure that their packaging is made from widely recyclable materials - we all know what a headache that can be as different councils seem to have different rules for what can and cannot be recycled. Luxury eggs from Thorntons, Baileys and Marks & Spencer all continue to use plastic packaging that is not recyclable in most local authorities, MP Jo Swinson found. This means that a vast amount of the Easter egg packaging will end up in landfill sites once the chocolate has been devoured.

This year though, Nestlé has become the first major confectioner to make its full Easter range 100% recyclable. Nestlé is behind one in five Easter eggs sold in the UK, so this move is set to save 726 tonnes of plastic waste going to a landfill this Easter. The company has among other things swapped the 48 tonnes of plastic used to secure mugs and eggs with recyclable cardboard certified by the FSC and a compostable film for the windows. This is a 30% reduction in packaging on mug eggs.

It is time for manufacturers to stop hiding behind green credentials and look at what in reality can be widely recycled. Alternatively perhaps the UK should look to its neighbours in the north, where papier-mâché eggs filled with sweets is the norm for Easter. These are great for the environment as they can be re-used year after year, and double-up as decoration around the house.

The latest Egg Packaging study, the sixth year it has been published analysed 11 eggs and drew comparisons between eight brands also surveyed between Mars, Nestlé, Cadbury, Thorntons, Sainbury's and Marks & Spencer.

I am not a vegetarian... yet. But more and more I am moving towards a pescaterian diet. Hey I'm from Scandinavia and will never be able to give up seafood. But an article in today's Independent about the thick pink paste American food producers add to many popular products is enough to make any normal person's stomach turn.

In the land where pizza is classified as a 'vegetable' (someone needs to educate them) scientists have found a way to turn the scraps from the abattoir floor into a substance called 'pink slime'. They clearly didn't have a PR involved in the naming of the stuff. This pink slime is then added, unknown to consumers, to things like hamburgers, tacos and other beef-based junk foods. Why? To make the mince go further.

The process goes something like this: add the cow scraps into a heated centrifuge to separate the fat from the putty. Then treat the substance with a chemical used in household cleaners to kill off salmonella and e-coli (how kind) and mix with regular beef.

Now it is a while since I stopped eating McDonald and Burger King burgers (remember that photo of the McD burgers one year on... That was why I stopped). These companies have now stopped adding the slime to their burgers, but I am staying far away from them either way.

The pink slime has been legal to sell in the US since 2001, and today more than half of the ground beef sold in America contains the stuff. A sneaky legislation also doesn't make it necessary to mention it on the ingredients lists. Luckily this pink slime is banned in Europe.

Now I am all for finding solutions to make food go longer, such as growing meat in a laboratory, if it means a more sustainable food future for the world. But adding something clearly unhealthy to spend less on actual produce, in this case beef, is disgusting.

Yeo Valley, the UK's biggest organic brand, has become the latest addition to the Soil Association's Ethical Trade scheme.

This means that all the milk used for Yeo Valley products - yoghurt, butter, cheese and milk - is now certified to Soil Association Ethical Trade standards and all products will have the Ethical Trade symbol on the packaging - showing they have gone the extra mile.

Soil Association Ethical Trade standards are an added extra to the Soil Association's existing organic standards. The standards were launched in 2008 following long standing calls to create a 'fair trading' scheme for organic farmers, in both the UK and abroad.

Sarah Compson, Soil Association Ethical Trade project manager, said: "One of the Soil Association's driving aims is to ensure that good food is available to everyone in society. For us good food is not just organically grown, minimally processed, fresh and seasonal, but it is also produced fairly - fairness being one of the four principles of organic agriculture as outlined by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements."

It's great to see another organic business showing their ethical commitment as there is clearly an appetite for fairer trading. The Co-operative's latest Ethical Consumerism report sows that sales of Fairtrade Food increased by 36% in 2011 and overall spend on ethical food and drink was up 5%.

Find out more about the scheme on www.soilassociation.org/ethicaltrade.

You already know what a great thing fairtrade is and how vital it is in helping overcome poverty and suffering, and make a difference to the farmers and their families in the developing world who work hard to ensure you get the products needed.

Charity Oxfam were the first to supply products with the fairtrade mark, making their brands fairtrade pioneers. Since then, the range of fairtrade products have just grown and you'll be able to find a varied selection of produce in your preferred supermarkets.

However, by supporting Oxfam, you're technically supporting two organisations at once - and it doesn't get better than that!

This Fairtrade Fortnight, why not show support by sending a perishable gift that will bring lots of joy and that is sustainable.

For more information visit www.oxfam.org.com/shop.

Who says life's little luxuries cannot be enjoyed in an ethically way?

Last night Hippyshopper was introduced to FAIR. Spirits, the world's first fairtrade ultra-premium spirits company. We're not quite sure how its name has escaped us until now - FAIR has been available in the UK since 2009 - but that is really just our loss.

With a backdrop fitting to such a premium label - London by night seen from above - FAIR. Spirits announced its collaboration with the Fairtrade Foundation this Fairtrade Fortnight, 27 February to 11 March 2012.

Available at selected London cocktail bars, such as Searcys at The Gherkin and many more, £2 of each cocktail sold during Fairtrade Fortnight goes directly to the Fairtrade Foundation.

FAIR is the first fairtrade spirits brand in the world, with all of its spirits produced from fairtrade certified ingredients that comply with organic farming methods.

The range currently includes Quinoa Vodka, Goji Liqueur (the first and only liqueur made from goji berries, known for their health benefits), and Café Liqueur.

For more information visit www.fairspirits.com and www.fairtrade.org.uk.

As a coffee lover, buying your daily fixes of caffeine in your keep cup can become an expensive habit. Especially when you go for the best of the bunch, those that are ethical and fairtrade and so on. So it is welcome news that a new instant triple certified coffee, which protects people, planet and product is now available to pick up from your local supermarket.

Café Nueva must be the most fair ethical coffee ever sold in UK supermarkets that you can buy responsibly without having to compromise on taste, quality or price. It is triple certified; with Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance and Organic certification, Café Nueva is the UK's first triple certified freeze dried coffee. This means that you can enjoy your morning cup of java with the peace of mind that coffee farmers and their families are fairly rewarded and that the environment in which the coffee beans are grown is protected and respected.

Café Nueva is made from the finest Peruvian beans and has an intense, rounded and smooth taste with chocolatey notes. Actually we could do with a bit of organic chocolate on the side! There is also an interesting smoky aftertaste which adds to the coffee experience.

Café Nueva is now available from selected Waitrose and Budgens stores in 100g jars from £3.29.

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As we already know, Christmas Day is closing in. Christmas Day is a perfect time for sharing - and this applies to food as well as to presents and cards. If you have a great interest in cooking then why not try creating a unique dish for your family and friends this year?

What you create over the Christmas period is entirely up to you, but cooking and backing is an integral part of the Christmas tradition. Whether you create an authentic dish or simply customise an existing recipe with festive ingredients, make sure that you have fun and get the family involved and have fun following great Christmas recipes.

Of course, Christmas dishes don't have to use the same ingredients and even pasta recipes can be adapted to show a festive influence. However, for those more interested in traditional dishes here is a brilliant recipe for Ginger Christmas Biscuits. These lovely snacks are very famous in Sweden and are commonly made in preparation for Christmas Day.

Ingredients
140g butter
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup (160g) brown sugar
1/2 cup (175g) treacle
1/2 tsp ground cloves
Thin ribbon, to hang
2 eggs
4 cups (600g) plain flour
1 tsp ground ginger
Icing, to decorate

Method
Melt the butter, treacle, cinnamon, sugar, cloves, and ginger in a pan on a medium heat.

Mix the eggs with the vanilla essence and stir in the flour and baking powder until the mixture reaches a smooth consistency.

Combine the mixtures together to form a dough and split it into three portions.
Cover these in plastic wrap and put them in a refrigerator for two hours or until they become firm.

Prepare the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease and cover two baking trays with non-stick baking paper. Expand one portion of the dough between two sheets of baking paper until it is 4-5 mm thick. Use a rolling pin to achieve this.

Use Christmas cookie cutters to make the shape of your biscuits and then place them on trays. Use the piping nozzle to create a hole in each biscuit for the ribbon (which will be added at the end).

Bake in the oven for 5-10 minutes or until the dough is gold and firm.

Repeat these processes for the remaining dough.

Remove the baked cookies from the baking trays and place on a wire rack to cool.

Decorate the cooled biscuits using icing. Make sure the biscuits are fully cooled before beginning this stage and get small children to assist you.

Add a thread with ribbon to the pre-cut holes in order to hang the biscuits on the Christmas tree.

This recipe will make over fifty biscuits and is therefore perfect for families.

Those interested in baking with spices such as ginger should take a look at the range of products and recipes provided by companies such as Schwartz. These will offer useful tips on how to create the best dishes - perfect for the run-up to Christmas.

We wrote about Feeding the 5000 back in November, when the group - which is campaigning to reduce food waste in the UK and beyond - hosted a free lunch at London's Trafalgar Square to show that imperfect vegetables are still edible and make delicious meals.

One of the chefs at Feeding the 5000 was eco-chef Tom Hunt who prepared some tasty dishes for the hungry Londoners showing their support for the cause.

Tom has kindly given us the recipe for one of the dishes he made with unwanted vegetables and surplus produce to share with you. Enjoy!

Ribollita, a traditional Tuscan soup made with leftovers, perfect for cold winter evenings

Ribollita is a traditional and robust Italian dish made from leftover soup, vegetables and stale bread. This soup is incredibly versatile you can adapt the ingredients to the season and to whatever vegetables you have in your fridge.

Recipe for 10

Ingredients
1 Pig Spleen
250g Dried canellini beans or chick peas (soaked overnight and cooked for 1 hour) or 500g of cooked
½ x Heads of celery, diced
1 Bunch of parsley, roughly chopped
500g Carrots, diced
500g Red onions, diced
500g Tinned plum tomatoes or tomato sauce, chopped
5 Cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
1 x Old loaves of ciabatta or white sourdough, with the crusts removed and saved for croutons or crumbs
1,250g Kale ideally or cabbage, chard or broccoli

Olive oil to taste

Other additions could be beetroot, beans, leeks, beans

Method
First put your spleen into a small pot that has a lid and cover with stock veg and water. Simmer gently for 1 ½ hours till soft. Remove from the pan and leave to cool then slice.
Sauté the slices of spleen, celery, parsley, carrots and onions in a pan for 15 minutes on a low heat. Season with a little salt and add the garlic. Add the tomatoes and cook for a further 15 minutes.

Remove the stalks from the kale or chard, slice them finely and add them to the vegetables. Layer the remaining leaves together and roll them to make a cigar, then shred them with a large cook's knife and add them to the pot. Next add the beans and a little water, keeping a thick consistency. Simmer for a further 15 minutes.

Now tear the bread into clumps and add to the soup, season with fresh olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Leave for a few minutes for the bread to absorb all the flavours and soften.

The soup should be very thick, robust and flavourful. The bread makes this dish hearty and good for winter.

Check out the images below from the Feeding the 5000 event - at which Mayor of London Boris Johnson made an appearance.

Images courtesy of Tom Hunt and Feeding the 5000.

When thinking about eco-friendly Christmas dinner recipes, you'd be forgiven if you think they'd all be vegetarian. However there are lots of environmentally minded people out there who aren't vegetarian or vegan, but who want to enjoy a delicious Christmas meal with the knowledge that the meat has been ethically and sustainably sourced.

Buying locally or free range is a great way to ensure that the meat on your plate has been reared with animal welfare in mind and that is environmentally sound. A great alternative to your traditional Christmas turkey is a free range cockerel roast, and here's a recipe courtesy of Packington Free Range to get your started.

Pistachio, sage & cream cheese free range cockerel Christmas roast recipe

Preparation time: 25 minutes plus resting
Cooking time: 2hours 30 mins or as calculated

Ingredients:
1 x 150g packet garlic and herb Boursin cheese
1 clove garlic, crushed
25g unsalted and shelled pistachio nuts, chopped
grated rind and juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tbsp fresh chopped sage
1 x 4kg Packington Free Range Cockerel
8 rashers smoked streaky bacon
olive oil
4 tbsp sherry
400 ml good chicken stock or vegetable juices

Preparation method:
Preheat the oven to 180 C/Gas Mark 4. Mix together the cheese, garlic, pistachios, lemon rind and juice, sage and seasoning until well combined.

Place the cockerel on a board and carefully ease your fingers then your hand under the skin of the cockerel at the neck end freeing it from the breast meat. Smear the cheese mixture over the breast meat under the skin. Then tuck the flap of skin underneath.

Arrange the bacon over the breast and drizzle over oil and season. Place in a large roasting tin and cover with foil. Calculate cooking time allowing 16 minutes per 450g/1lb plus 16 minutes or until juices run clear from the thigh when pierced with a knife or skewer. Remove the foil for the last 45 minutes to allow the cockerel to brown.

Remove the cockerel from the oven and transfer to a warm serving plate. Cover with foil and allow to rest for 20-30 minutes. Meanwhile skim most of the fat from the roasting pan and discard. Scrape the meat juices in the pan together. Place over a low heat and blend in sherry and stock. Bring to the boil, stirring and season to taste. Serve the gravy with the cockerel.

Packington is a farm with a traditional family heritage which spans four generations that also has an award-winning animal welfare ethos supported and accredited by the RSPCA.

www.packingtonfreerange.co.uk

Think about this: The UK has nearly twice as much food as is required if looking at nutritional needs of its populations, while some European countries have more than three times the food they need. The US however is the big bad wolf in the food distribution debate, having around four times more food than its inhabitants need...

Food waste is a real problem in the Western world with approximately 40 million tonnes of food wasted in US households, retailers and food services each year alone - which is horrible considering there are nearly one billion malnourished people in the world. And while governments are worried about over-population and food supply issues, a lot could be done with a bit of re-distribution and more conscious thinking by all of us. How many times have you not bought vegetables that have ended up in the bin one week later because you just forgot about them? In fact, UK households waste around 25% of all the food they buy over a year. Another culprit is the 'rule' that supermarkets cannot sell 'imperfect' produce, in other words vegetables that haven't got the right shape according to cosmetics standards set by some regulatory body. Here's the shocker: they still taste the same as their perfect counterparts!

So while four million Brits and 43 million EU citizens suffer from food poverty silly rules and regulations and mindless waste keep adding to our problems.

Feeding the 5000 hope to show how easy it is to reduce the unimaginable levels of food waste in the UK and internationally, and how governments, businesses and individuals can help.

To show how bad our country's food waste is, Feeding the 5000 is hosting a free lunch for 5000 people made entirely out of fresh ingredients that would otherwise have been wasted: wonky carrots, misshapen potatoes and other fresh surplus produce.

Feeding the 5000's free lunch takes place on Friday 18th November 2011 at Trafalgar Square, London, from 12pm (noon) to 2pm. So head down there for a bite to eat and show your support. Oh and sign their pledge here!

If you run a small food business or know someone who does jot down this name somewhere: SUSTAINATION.

"The world's food system is struggling to feed 7bn people, yet it needs to feed at least 9bn for the next few hundred years. If ever there was a time when innovation and collaboration are essential to human and ecological welfare, this is it."

The new online service has joined the dots to help small food businesses to find each other easily, talk and trade, creating local and regional food networks that have the efficiency to compete with supermarkets while creating livelihoods and preserving regional identity.

The service is free for everyone to sign up to - for now - and lets you type in a location to find nearby people who are keen to do business or you can search for produce. Think of it as a dating service for local businesses that makes it convenient and easy to find, buy, and sell local produce that will save you time and expense and helps making you more sustainable!

Check out their website for more information and follow on Facebook or say hello to @Sustaination on Twitter.

And if you're really lazy... simply click play on the video below to learn more

SUSTAINATION - Find us on www.PeopleFund.it from Ed Dowding on Vimeo.

Coffee is a big global business and many - myself included -are practically addicted to it. Unfortunately the high consumption of takeaway coffee leads to more landfill as UK coffee shops are failing to make it easy for java addicts to recycle the estimated 2.5 billion takeaway cups thrown away each year.

It is consumer group Which? that has warned the UK coffee industry of these startling figures after its investigation found that consumers are confused by the use of 'mixed materials' and end up throwing the cups in the general waste bin. Of the 2,471 people surveyed more than half admitted that they throw their paper cups in the general waste bin instead of recycling them.

One solution to the brewing problem is to encourage people who drink their fair share of coffee to invest in reusable coffee cups and bring these with them on their daily coffee run. Starbucks is already trying to sway its customers to think more eco-friendly by offering 25p off for anyone bringing in their own cup.

If you're interested in doing your bit to reduce coffee cup waste, one brand of reusable mugs is KeepCup, the first barista standard reusable coffee cup. And you can personalise it to be any colour you like!