Twig and Leaf Botanical - an amazing Etsy shop.

Twig & Leaf is a small, couple owned and operated business in Boulder, Colorado. They use only vegan ingredients and organically grown or wildcrafted plant materials in all of our products.
Their products are made from natural, organic plant material, without any chemical additives.
All of their packaging is RECYCLED!  Their glass jars are thick recycled glass.

A wonderful shop selling a huge variety of natural herbs and potions, that will not only be good for your body and skin but fill your senses with joy. How about a home spa treatment or a coconut body scrub? Something for every skin type.
Want to know more about this wonderful shop? then read on......................

When Kelly was young, her mom thought she would be a chemist - but she is lousy at math - and her dad thought she would be a park ranger.
I suppose she did an unexpectedly splendid job of blending the two together.
Kelly has always been passionate about plants and their properties. Somewhere along the line a few years ago, she decided this is what she wants to do with her life, despite having gone to 3 colleges and changed degrees from photography, creative writing, to elementary education and traveling and living all across the united states.
She is working on her Clinical Herbalism degree, and he is working in economics.
Kelly and Scott are both 24 years old and currently reside in Boulder, Colorado with our rescue cat - kitty face. We live in a small, beautiful cabin nestled at the foot of the Flatiron Mountains, surrounded by plum trees and ivy. What’s not to love?
Kelly has been vegan since she was 6 years old, which started out as a health issue and evolved into a conscious decision. Scott has been vegan for over two years now.
When Kelly started her business, she was just making bulk organic herbal teas, each with different health benefits, and selling them to a café in Boulder. We are still doing that, but she decided that enough is enough with having to rely on other shady businesses for every day products. What are those ingredients? Why are they in there? What do they do? She developed her own lip balms and lotions with simple, organic ingredients, with no animal products, and wanted to share them with everyone. So came about twig & leaf botanicals. We use only organic butters, oils, and plant materials, and strive to use organic locally grown plants when we can. We believe that everyone should have access to simple, natural, and healthy products with an affordable price. We also use ALL recycled paper and glass packaging, and no plastics, because plastics contain harmful chemicals that can leak into your products - and we’re pretty sure no one wants to rub that into their skin.

Check out their Etsy Shop and browse the wonderful products, and for interesting information and lovely photos, hop on over to their Blog, wonderfully inspiring, and a fabulous blog.

VegiDeli Organic Brussels Style Pate

A vegan alternative to Pork Liver Pate.
I must say, I was a bit hessitant to try this, as I don't like fake meats that are too realistic (meaty), kinda scary. But as I've not seen this pate before, I thought I'd give it a try. Made some toast, buttered it, which I don't know if one would butter toast to spread pate on, or if one should just have the pate on toast, but I fancied mine buttered!
The pate spread quite thickly, which I guess is what it's supposed to do, after all it is a pate copy not a paste.
The taste, hmmmm, well, the taste was meaty. scarily meaty. I can't say I liked it. It left a fatty meaty aftertaste in my mouth. I suppose that if you like the taste of meat but don't want to eat it, or if you want to give your meat eating friends something vegan without them moaning they've not got meat, then this would be a good product to use. I can't remember ever having pate (pre vegan days), so I looked it up on the web, to see what brussels pate contains, the ingedients varied but the overall idea is pork liver, pork fat, some had chicken liver too.
here's a typlical ingredients list:
Pork Liver (35%), Pork Fat, Pork (17%), Cows' Milk, Water, Preservatives (Sodium Lactate, Sodium Nitrite), Salt, Onion, Pasteurised Whole Egg, Milk Protein (From Cows' Milk), Spices (Celery), Emulsifier (Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids), Dextrose, Antioxidant (Ascorbic Acid). 

nutrient	per 100g
Energy kCal	390	kCal
Energy kJ	1,612	kJ
Protein	10.6	g
Carbohydrate	1.1	g
of which sugars	1.1	g
Fat	38.2	g
of which saturates	16.6	g
Fibre	Trace
Sodium	0.7	g
Salt	1.8	g

compared to :

Organic ham style pieces, water*, sunflower oil, textured soya protein, tofu, wheat starch & protein, yeast extracts*, sugar, onion powder, salt*, carrageenan* & locust bean gum, herbs & spices, iron oxide*

Energy:	1143.90kJ / 273.40kcal
Protein:	15.20g
Carbohydrate:	8.00g
(of which sugars)	1.80g
Fat:	20.40g
(of which saturates)	3.90g
Fibre	1.30g
Sodium	0.88g
Calcium	0.00mg

Both high in fat content, but there is a difference (if fat content counts for you), the vegan option has about half the fat compared the the animal one.  Also the vegan pate has higher protein content. so hey, when someone asks the silly question "were do vegans get their protein?" -  well from vegan brussels pate of course!!!!!!!!!!