For the last few years, Jen and I have taken quarterly trips to Lembas. Lembas is a Vegetarian and Vegan Wholesaler who supply many of the healthy food retailers, cafes and restaurants in and around Sheffield. This makes eating healthily much cheaper. It's not posh, it's not pretty but the prices are right, they stock what we want and the staff are amazing.

We eat a whole food plant-based (WFPB) diet most of the time (but not always). We decided to eat this way mainly for health reasons but then the moral/cruelty argument made us make this a forever decision and not just another fad diet. We describe ourselves as plant-based rather than Vegan, mainly out of respect for thoroughbred vegans who would not dream of wearing a leather belt or eating the odd egg, honey or cheese. Eating this way offers so many amazing recipes and some of your pantry items are used a lot and hence it makes sense to buy these in bulk.

Here are a few items that we tend to buy in bulk...

Dried Chickpeas - We use these for so many recipes such as homemade hummus, crispy chickpeas (like nuts), curries, salads etc. £7.28 for 5Kg
Pinto Beans - We love brunch and Mexican food and use these often to make some awesome refried beans, yummy. £10.92 for 5Kg
Cashew Nuts - We often use these to make a creamy sauce as well as in our kids morning oats (we intermittent fast so don't have breakfast), for snacking and you can make Vegan cheese with them. £17.83 for 2.5Kg (These would be £29 in Tescos)
Chia Seeds - If you've not made a Chia pudding then do it, try it with chocolate, orange, we make ours with oat milk and we love it. You can also sprinkle them in smoothies and add to oats. £5.37 for 1Kg
Jumbo Oats - we use these for flapjack and the kid's breakfast. £4.85 for 5Kg
Organic, wholemeal bread flour - We love bread and hence do try and make our own Sourdough bread (after trial and error we have finally got it cracked).
Walnuts - they are fabulous for you but expensive so buy broken ones in bulk make sense. £9.48 for 1Kg (this would be nearly £16 in Tescos)
Lots of different seeds, we buy a Kg of each and use them in salads, homemade bread, porridge, just sprinkle them on everything.

We bought loads more as the bill came in just over £200 but we are now well stocked for at least 3 months. To buy this stuff from your supermarket would be about £330.

Lembas is currently open for cash and carry (you don't need to be a business), the latest opening hours are...

Another option that we sometimes use is Suma but they deliver via a big lorry and you need to buy in bulk. These guys are even cheaper than Lembas, however, we support local and love the Lembas guys.

For a few items such as Organic Mapel Syrup we buy on auto-ship from Amazon.

I'll do another blog post soon about how we come up with an unending number of great meals even though to many not eating meat, eggs, cheese, fish etc might seem restrictive with the use of the Forks over Knives Menu Planning service. It costs about £70 per year but is amazing. We have never eaten with such diversity, so healthily and learned so many new recipes.

If you want us to pick you up something next time we go just let us know.