2022
Hello everyone!
As World Environment Day ends, I want to share with you the recap of my meet-up “Todos Cuidando a la TieRRRa” (Everyone taking care of the EaRRRh). It was a meet-up especially made for Earth Month, done right at the end of it.
I have been pretty busy since then, but today seems to be the perfect day to post this reminder of some places we can find in our areas that help take care of the environment and reduce our carbon footprint.
The meet-up was based on this article I posted on Earth Day, I invite you to read it if you haven’t!:♻️The 3 Rs: Right on Maps!📍
It was also a mix of topics I really care about, like accessibility and inclusion, so we tried to look into those aspects of the places as well, not only if they were accessible, but also if they offered options for people that don’t eat gluten and anything we could think of.
We were 6 Local Guides y Crowdsourcers roaming the neighborhood of Palermo in our sustainable path: Ceci (@Cecilita), Cris (@TheCrisSandoval), Mati (@matigfv), Maxi(@Maximilianozalazar), Kevin, and me.
🌱First stop: Let it V
It’s a branch of a plant-based restaurant that I tend to order from, and I love it! And since non-vegans or vegetarians had also told me that they liked it, and it allows people to book, it seemed like a good place for us.
Once we were all there, it took us a long time to choose: some like me for being indecisive and couldn’t choose between several dishes, and others seemed a bit apprehensive to try new food, or vegetables they didn't know, or at least their combination. Which is understandable! We all start somewhere, and it can be hard to get out of your comfort zone.. especially with this kind of food in a meat-based culture like Argentina’s.
Our table ended up with a bit of a mix, we had sushi (vegan, of course, like everything else), avocado toast, a chocolate cake and another dessert. And then a couple of us had gnocchi because it was the 29th! On this date every month it’s a tradition for Argentines to eat it. We also ordered it because it looked good on the photos on Maps, of course.
As we ate and gave our opinions on the food, we talked about plant-based food in general. So that was a good time to demolish myths such as “eating plants makes you lack protein or some kind of nutrients” for example (which doesn’t, but people seem to think you think plant based food lacks protein or some nutrients are only found in animal products) but well, as much as people can give their opinions and it’s always good to have this discussions, investigating, reading from reliable sources and seeing examples of people having this way of life is what reveals the truth.
What I find is that vegans and vegetarians, despite veganism being considered a restrictive diet, actually tend to eat a lot more diverse foods and understand more of how what they are eating benefits their body! Or at least that’s based on my experience and how it seems to be with Argentines.
So with this, I invite you to try some vegan and vegetarian restaurants around you and try some flavors and veggies you might be missing out on! Don't forget about what I shared on the article I linked before, eating plant-based food is proven to reduce your carbon footprint as animal-based foods require more energy to get.
♿Regarding the inclusiveness of this Let It V branch, it had stairs on the entrance for example, so it wasn’t accessible physically. ❌
🌾But it did have gluten-free options. ✅
🖼️ A “stop” (checkpoint): A mural.
Okay, it’s actually from a brand, but I thought it was cool as it was about the environment too
“We are in this space to save our planet, the Earth.”
🛍️ Second (real) stop: Solidary Market Bondpland (Mercado Solidario)
A sustainable market, ♿ accessible too, that sells agro ecological products from local and small businesses. There were plenty of plastic-free soaps and shampoos, reusable bags, fruits and vegetables, and more.
Also, a cool mirror in which we took a ...groupie? (group selfie)
I bet you have some similar markets near you too! If not, there might be stands on the weekend in some street?
Either way, any local shop is always better than an imported one: the less amount of travel is done to manufacture or sell a product, the less energy was consumed in its process, and therefore the less the impact on the environment!
🥐 Third stop: Craft Vegan Bakery
We made a quick stop at this vegan bakery for a dessert. The pastries were very tasty and we all thought they had the same flavor as the non-vegan ones. They also had ice-cream!
Although, we wouldn’t give it five stars as we saw they had signs saying that if you showed them you wrote a review for the place on Maps, they would give you a discount 😕. And we all know that that incentives 5 star reviews or at least a 4 star review, no one would show them a bad review!
Hopefully your local vegan bakery doesn’t try to get fake reviews this way. But you have to try vegan pastries somewhere!
🚶♀️Walking and small stops 🚶♂️
We followed the path I had planned, seeing some more sustainable businesses from outside, like a shop that also had a coffee place on the back (and I definitely want to go to someday) and more vegan restaurants in the area.
I had also planned for us to go to Cero Market, the zero plastic/waste alternative to a supermarket, but they seemed to have just closed despite their times shown on Maps, I guess they weren’t having many clients at that time of the weekend. There are many other branches of this business around the city, so hopefully everyone will be able to try some of these too, or I will be able to introduce it to them in another meet-up.
One thing about Cero Market is that some products are high up, so wheelchair users could be limited. ♿❌
Have you got any zero waste markets in your area? Or can you take your containers to a market to avoid plastic?
👚Fourth stop: Galpón de Ropa
To finish up we went to this second-hand clothes shop that promotes circular clothing: we can sell clothes in good condition that we don’t wear, and buy other pieces.
It’s a very good place, and Cris and I bought a couple of things.
Regarding it’s accessibility, this branch had stairs to get to the lower floor and also didn’t have that much space to move ❌♿ or at least not in the weekend where there’s more people. Also the men’s/masculine section seemed to be very small compared to the women’s/feminine section ❌♂️
Despite that, we all loved the place and the idea and continued talking about how we wanted to go to more of them.
Here’s my list of these sort of places in Buenos Aires:♻️ Reusar: ropa
I’m sure there are shops of this kind or vintage/thrift shops near you!
Finally, not as a part of the meet-up, but we did end up going to a cafe we had seen as we walked earlier: Knowhere Collectibles. It’s a geeky place with foods and drinks that reference pop culture things, like Harry Potter. I had gone a few times before, but on this visit I noticed they had vegan options for lunch! It was very nice to see, as they didn't have any. Now they just need the plant-based milk, and an elevator or physically accessible place. ❌♿
As it wasn’t really a part of the plan of the meet-up, I won’t add much more about it here, but it was a good example on how places that offer animal-based products are in the process of being more inclusive with vegetarianism and veganism. At least in the city of Buenos Aires, I know that it’s still another reality in other cities.
In conclusion, it was a nice day in which we were able to tour this area and recognize the big amount of places with plant-based foods or sustainable products around us, also thinking about how we can visit these places more in our day to day.
Some of these places were not accessible, or did not have much for certain kinds of people, but at this point I think we are clear that there are few places that can be considered “completely” inclusive, but anything businesses can do to include different humans it’s good! Like I always say, every contribution (or “small” thing) matters.
I left the meet-up satisfied from the perspective of what we all took from it: about the knowledge of places such as those selling second-hand clothes, and I hope that also the beginnings of a more positive outlook when encouraging food-based in plants, although I hope to motivate everyone more with time!
After the meet-up we continued talking through the group chat and saying that we decided to eat for dinner, and although there was someone who needed to eat meat, I am happy that a couple managed to eat plant-based afterwards, even ordering a vegan pizza!
🖼️ You can check out more photos in the album.
Thank you for reading!
Do you know any of these kinds of places, or have you done any of this on Earth month or this last World Environment Day?
@Jesi este meet me encantó,estuvo muy divertido 😃, además conocí lugares nuevos con respecto al sistema de reciclado de ropa, fue genial salir de compras con ustedes.
Siguiendo la temática del día, te cuento que yo plante mí árbol en el riachuelo para ayudar con la naturaleza, un pequeño aporte a la naturaleza. Saludos
