Help & Advice

When it comes to cutting down meat and dairy, the internet is your friend. Here are some great sites that will help you eat better, save money, cut food waste, grow your own – and take a more environmentally-friendly approach to what you eat every day. If there are sites that you’ve found especially helpful, please tell us about them and we’ll share them here.

Lowly Food

This site is jam-packed with useful information on how to reduce carbon emissions through your diet – and why you should. It has some great swap-out recipes, including Sunday dinner. There’s also a seasonal eating guide and links to lots of useful resources and informative articles.

Meat Free Monday

This is a brilliant site, which starts with an impact calculator that shows the difference you can make by going meat-free for just one day a week. It really does count! You can also look through lots of tempting recipes, find out how you can get involved and just why all of this matters so much (if you’re not already persuaded).

Find your FOODprint

Do you know your Carbon FOODprint? That’s the environmental impact of your diet. The Earthday website has a list of carbon calculators and quizzes. Answer a few simple questions about your diet and lifestyle, then see just how much difference small changes can make.

Love Food, Hate Waste

Did you know that in the UK we waste 6.5 million tonnes of food – every year? And what’s worse is that 4.5 million tonnes of that total is perfectly edible.

Although not just veg-focused, this site has tons of information about reducing waste to combat climate change. Eating with the seasons, great ideas for cooking and saving your leftovers plus savvy ways to shop and save money. They also offer practical advice on the perfect way to store your food so it lasts for ages.

Shopping or Eating out? Try HappyCow

HappyCow.net is a one-stop resource for everything VEG. Find vegan and vegetarian restaurants and health food stores worldwide; read travel and health articles; download mobile app; exchange recipes and stories. Join HappyCow’s growing community of caring people who are dedicated to promoting a healthy, compassionate, and sustainable lifestyle.”

Unicorn Grocery

Chorlton’s very own award-winning grocery co-operative. Their website has tons of recipes which you can search by veg type. There’s also information about seasonal and sustainable eating.

What exactly do you do with tofu? How can you cater for those with allergies or intolerances? It’s all here.

Chorlton Plant Swap and Gardening Advice

The name says it all, really. If you’re on Facebook, you’ll find a generous, super-helpful, community of over 2,000 local gardeners and growers. Every level of expertise is there, from the houseplant hopefuls to the full-on allotmenteers. They swap ideas, share tips, swap spare plants and seeds and save themselves tons of money. Look out for their regular stalls at events and markets, where you can bring a plant and swap it for something tasty.

The Vegetarian Society

Did you know that the Vegetarian Society’s roots are in Salford, 1809? Nowadays the Society is based in Altrincham, where they run a popular cookery school. Their website is a fantastic source of information, inspiration and explains how and why a more plant-based lifestyle is the way to go. There’s all the gen about nutrition and an excellent EatWell guide.

Whether you want to go full-on vegetarian or vegan, or you just want to make a few small changes, this is a great place to start.

5 A Day from the NHS

If there’s one thing we all know (but perhaps don’t quite manage to do), it’s that we should try to eat at least five portions of fruit and veg each day. But which fruit and veg count toward your total? What exactly is a portion? Are potatoes included? What about juices and smoothies?

Get clued-up and find that getting your 5 a Day might just be a lot easier than you think.