For the last couple of years, we have been doing Veganuary and, in my case, I eat mostly vegan the majority of the time – except that sometimes when I am busy and get hungry, I reach for granola bars which are often not vegan. Plus, they are really not suitable for me as I am a diabetic. This year we decided that we would continue to do Veganuary and eat more fruit and raw vegetables if possible and as a result we have tried to make more salads which have both fruits and vegetables in. However, with the second Lockdown, we found that we were not able to go to the Farmers Markets and with Brexit, we found that the supermarket online deliveries often missed out some of the fruit and vegetables and that they sometimes don’t look as fresh as the ones we would usually buy at the market. So, when I was asked to try out the ZENB Veggie Sticks and Veggie Bites, I was happy to do so and agreed to act as an ambassador for the ZENB Veganuary activity.
A bit about ZENB:
ZENB is a new, organic, plant-based brand that strives to give customers the opportunity to eat delicious on-the-go snacks, whilst also being respectful of the resources of our natural environment. The name ZENB is derived from the Japanese word “Zenbu” meaning “whole”. The company believes in including as much of the vegetable as possible, including the peel, skin, stem and seeds to help raise awareness around issues of food waste. Through the power of plants, ZENB strives to build a food lifestyle for the future.
A bit about ZENB’s products
ZENB make their own veggie bars called Veggie Sticks as well as Veggie Bites. Both of these products are plant-based, vegan, organic, gluten free, a source of fibre and free from artificial flavours or preservatives. Their products are available exclusively from ZENB.co.uk.
The ZENB Veggie Sticks are made using the vegetables, as well as puffed brown rice, red quinoa and almonds to complement and enhance the simple flavour of the vegetables. These are available in four flavours – Beetroot, Carrot, Pumpkin and Red Pepper. The ZENB Veggie Sticks champion the whole vegetable meaning they include the parts often discarded from seed to skin, and stem to peel – helping to raise awareness around issues of food waste.
The ZENB Veggie Bites are veggie-first snacks complemented with an enticing blend of fruit, nuts and spices, to create a range of five unique flavour-pairings – Carrot, Pineapple and Coriander, Pumpkin, Apple and Cacao Nib, Beetroot, Orange and Cacao Nib, Red Pepper, Tomato and Chili and Sweet Potato, Mango and Cinnamon. These come in portable resealable pouches making it easy to enjoy them anytime and anywhere. Just like ZENB Veggie Sticks, ZENB Veggie Bites use as much of the whole vegetable as possible to help raise awareness around issues of food waste.
How I like to eat them:
- I find that I get bored very easily, especially as I am working from home at the moment and the ZENB Veggie Bites are the perfect thing to snack on during my online meetings. When we used to have face to face team meetings in the Office, we always had some biscuits or mints etc. to graze on during the breaks but that doesn’t happen when the meetings are online.
- I always keep a ZENB Veggie Stick in my coat pocket when I go for the one walk I am allowed during lockdown. I really don’t want to go to any takeaway coffee shops now so the Veggie Sticks are handy to snack on.
- I like to include the ZENB Veggie Bites in my salad and I also used a few in my curry to see how they tasted too.
My Impulse Salad Recipe:
The salad recipe is really very easy. Just gather whatever vegetables and fruit you have in your fridge and wash and prepare them in a bowl. The pandemic has taught all of us to economise and improvise with whatever food we have available – I used some lettuce, radishes, tomatoes, peaches, cucumber, raw broccoli, some passion fruit and topped that with the Carrot, Pineapple and Coriander Bites. I chose these flavours for two reasons – one was that I didn’t have any carrots or coriander to add to my salad and the second was that I thought the pineapple would blend well with passion fruit. Both pineapple and passion fruit remind me of my childhood in Kenya, where these fruits were sold outside our school along with mangoes and barbecued sweet corn. We really enjoyed the combination of flavours in our salad bowl. The Carrot, Pineapple and Coriander Bites had just the right flavours to blend in with the rest of the ingredients and it meant we didn’t really need to add any condiments to the salad either.
Curry Topping
Those of you who like my curries must have seen that I often like to add paneer, veggie dumplings, koftas or tofu to my curries so it’s no surprise that I added the Red Pepper, Tomato and Chilli bites to my mung bean curry. The Veggie Bites gave the curry a bit of a bite and it was perfect to have with my parathas. The flavours of the Veggie Bites were subtle and blended really nicely with the curry.
My husband and I enjoyed the ZENB Veggie Bites and Veggie Sticks. They were perfect for snacking, especially for me during Veganuary. As mentioned above, the ZENB snacks are plant-based, vegan, organic, gluten free and a source of fibre as well as free from artificial flavours or preservatives
Are you interested in trying these? ZENB Veggie Bites and Veggie Sticks can be ordered exclusively from www.ZENB.co.uk and they are happy for all my readers and followers to receive a 10% discount by using the code MINA10.
Disclaimer: Post in collaboration with ZENB