Sustain has recently launched the Real Bread Campaign. The website has a fantastic map which you can use to locate real bread producers in your area (or add your own bakery!). Brilliant. There's also lots of information on there about what real bread is and why we should be eating it including what is wrong with industrially produced bread. This campaign is not about making it easier for a few people to have the luxury of going out to buy fancy artisan bread. Bread is a fundamental part of our diet, three quarters of all people have it as part of their diet every day, and as such it is vitally important that the bread we eat is good for us. Industrial milling breaks the grains down in a way that destroys many of it's nutritional qualities, so much so that vitamins have to be added back into the mix by law. These re-added vitamins are more difficult (or impossible?) for our bodies to take in than those that were originally naturally present but that the industrial process has removed. Other aspects of the way most bread is produced makes it all but impossible for some people to digest properly. There's ...

A trip in a small boat to the floating markets of Cai Rang on the Mekong Delta was to provide the setting for the next of our adventures in fruit (WOOP! Just realised what I have just written - how cool this trip is!!) . These markets are incredible. The river was buzzing with life. Hundreds of boats gather piled high with produce from pumpkins and cucumbers to star apples and jackfruit. Each boat has a pole with a sample of the boat's wares tied up high so it can be seen from afar. We spent some time drifting wide eyed through the boats. We hired a guide to come with us so we could ask any questions as we were bobbing along. He told us a lot of the people lived on the boats. As we looked we noticed some were set up barge stylee with pot plants and deck chairs. I'm sure it's not all quite the jolly boating holiday though. These people have little money and live very simple lives. To me on a visit this traditional way of life that has gone on for hundreds of years seems like a beautiful treasure to cling on to. But it is ...

Guangzhou fish market is no doubt the craziest place I've seen so far on the trip. I don't even think we were there at a busy time and the place was incredibly lively! We stood out a little wandering around in our bright t-shirts gawping at the various tanks of fish and other strange unrecognised creatures and attracted quite a bit of attention. There were groups of young lads who seemed to be hanging from the sides of stalls and stood on mountains of crates who stared and shouted hello as we walked by. My favorite was one guy who had obviously recognised our bewilderment who threw open his arms out wide and yelled "Welcome to Guanzhou" down the alley to us. This market is huge and I would really recommend going for a walk around it, that is so long as you're not the type who doesn't like to upset themselves watching things get killed (perhaps a silly thing to say on a vegetarian blog?!). It's really fascinating. You'll see things you've never seen and get a glimpses of a completely different way of life. I don't eat fish, but I just love places like this. So active, everyone with ...

So as promised, here are "a few" photos from the rest of the stay in Harbin. Mainly from the market, which was amazing. Deffo recommend popping in there for a stroll if you happen to be passing... erm. Here's a map to find it if you do fancy checking it out. Planning on updating this with other restaurants/interesting food places as we go around, so keep an eye out. Also there are pics from the ice festival, which wasn't quite what we expected. It seems from this year it has been taken over by Disney. You can imagine our joy when we were greeted by a huge Mickey Mouse, lots of merchandise and general selling out of a previously independent event. Booo. Still, we had a good time. Well actually it got 3.5 out of 10, but you know we had as good a time as we could at -23 surrounded by plastic Disney characters when we were expecting world famous ice sculptures. I have to start the post off with this though: It is the breakfast from the hotel we were staying at, The Lungmen, which was just opposite the station. Have you ever seen anything like it?! There was a ...

Last week when I went to do my shopping at K+N in Birkenhead (top veg shop!) I saw they had a couple of crates of English tomatoes for sale at £2.99 each. £2.99!! The box was over 5kg! So that's less than 60p per kg or about £1 less per kg than normal price. I knew it was good, but I'd never normally get through so many before they went squidgy.  And then a flash of inspiration, I remembered seeing Hugh making tomato sauce for the year from his home grown yearly glut and decided this was my chance to do the same (shame they weren't home grown though). This is really good. K+N probably buy from wholesale market in Liverpool, which I assume works a bit like a normal market, only bigger. Often at the end of the day you'll get people practically giving things away, and they pass this on to their customers. Reminds me of I was walking through Kirkgate Market in Leeds a couple of weeks ago and a guy was shouting "Bag of bananas a pound! As many bananas as you can fit in a carrier bag a pound!" He had a hoard of ladies surrounding ...