CHALLENGE: Best of British – What I Learned

Thank you for all your comments over the past few days! 

This challenge was an absolute eye-opener. I couldn't believe how heavily I rely on imported foods for every day living! Although I wasn't quite as naïve as some of my friends, who wondered why I couldn't have tea since it is an “English heritage”!

What I Will Take Away

Whilst this diet will be too restrictive to keep up, until I build up my own resources anyway, I would like to take away a few goals for the year. Firstly, I will grow much more of my own food in the future. When I get my own place I would love to keep chickens for eggs, but that is a long way off yet. In the meantime I'll get my hands dirty in the garden!

If I had known during 2011 that I would decide to undertake this challenge in January 2012, it would have been prudent to grow beans and can them in preparation for winter protein. This year I will definitely preserve home-grown food, as I would love to become more self-sufficient.

I will make an effort to eat “mainly” British. If most of the ingredients are British (for example Hovis uses 100% British wheat), that will be a good compromise for me. I will eat seasonal vegetables grown in the UK, which will save me money as well as reducing my carbon footprint!

Eating entirely British is very difficult and I don't really recommend trying it. My challenge to you is to pay attention to where you food comes from in the next couple of weeks. What surprised you? Maybe try to incorporate more 100% British meals (or wherever you live). It'll save you money (when eating seasonally) and be kinder to the planet!

CHALLENGE: Best of British – The Frugality of Eating Local

Firstly, a big thank you to Pamela over at Frugal Homemaking, who wrote about my challenge in her blog. She mentioned that even meat has seasons, which is something I hadn't considered before. Meat eaters could have a problem trying to find British lamb before spring is sprung, whilst many species of fish can only be caught at specific times of year. Just more difficulties to add to the list!


The Frugality of Eating Local
Onto my thoughts for today. You may think I've been paying over the odds for foods just to ensure they are British. Whilst that may be the case for some foods (HONEY = £3.99 for a jar from Devon, 99p for Tesco Value honey jar of the same size!!), I've found that in general it is actually enabling me to save money!

Meal planning

This challenge is very restrictive, especially as a vegetarian, so it is important I have in my head an idea of what I will eat for the day. A typical day's worth of food has been:

  - Porridge for breakfast (Scottish oats and Cornish milk) – 23p (~5p for the porridge, 18p for the milk)

  - Spinach, leek and cheese omelette with a salad for lunch (fried in British butter to avoid the unclear origins of vegetable oil) – 99p (~20p for the spinach, 9p for the leek, 25p for the cheese, 35p for the eggs, 10p for the lettuce)

  - Apple for a snack (from Kent) - ~9p

  - A big bowl of vegetable stew for dinner (carrots, potatoes, parsnips, swede – no salt as Cornish sea salt is bloody expensive, although Pamela mentioned a book about eating locally where the authors made their own salt from seawater) - ~40p (~5p for carrot, 10p for potato, 10p for parsnip, 15p for swede)

  - Yogurt and honey for a snack – 65p (~40p for yogurt, 25p for spoonful of honey)

To be honest, most days have had very similar menus! It is hard to be creative on the narrow scope of this challenge, especially when I was fitting food in around two jobs! An entire day's food for £2.36 can't be bad though!

Seasonal eating

Whilst eating locally, you have to eat seasonally. Whatever's in season is cheapest. We all know this, yet I for one have rarely paid it any attention. A simple rule is that if you can find it in your local farmer's market, you'll know that it is seasonal, fresh and cheap. If you eat winter vegetables now, and stock up on British strawberries in the summer, you'll save yourself a bundle over the year. (If you have your own vegetable patch you're already miles ahead – FREE seasonal food!!)

No junk food!

Pretty much NO junk food snacks are 100% British, so I've not been wasting any money on that! Walkers crisps are made with British potatoes, but the oil and flavourings are likely to be imported. Chocolate is made from cocoa beans, which grow in Africa. Lots of cakes are made using palm oil from Africa or Asia, something which I will not be returning to after this week is over because of its devastating effect on the environment. 

For those who want to make an entirely British sugary snack, why not make biscuits from 250g butter, 140g Silverspoon sugar (the only company I've found to use British sugar beet rather than imported sugar cane to make sugar), 1 egg yolk and 300g plain flour. Bake at 180°C or gas mark 4 for 12-15 minutes.

Savings of the Past

We could learn a lot by revisiting old recipes from World War II, when imported fruit and veg was almost non-existent and people had to make do with what they had. It can be very cheap to survive on a diet of local meats and seasonal vegetables. If you had to survive entirely on your own country's food, what would you need to change to do it? Start a vegetable plot? Preserve food? Raise animals? What do you already do to eat local?

CHALLENGE: Best of British – The Difficulties of Eating Local

The past few days I have been eating only British food. This means no tea, rice, pasta, beans, couscous, sweet potatoes or chocolate. The salt in processed food is almost certainly not British, so these are a no-no! It is not enough to be simply made in the UK, the foodstuff must also have entirely British ingredients.

Over the past couple of days I have met several difficulties. The challenge is much harder than I initially thought it would be. I encourage anyone to try it however, to learn more about the food that goes onto their plates!

The Veggie Dilemma

The challenge of eating entirely local would be much simpler if I ate meat. I've been a vegetarian for almost a year now, getting most of my protein from beans and dairy products. Different beans come from different places, but most beans are grown in the Americas, Asia, Africa or the Mediterranean, so unless I found British varieties (unlikely in winter) they were off the menu!

Instead I have resorted to a lot of cheese and milk, with an omelette pretty much daily! A vegan would have major difficulties in getting enough British protein, especially at this time of year.

Location, Location, Location

Some supermarkets are very good and let you know where all of your fruit and veg come from. It can, however, be very hard to determine where the ingredients in various products come from. If you are eating British, make sure you look out for added sugar, salt, oils, etc., which are probably manufactured on the cheap in other countries!

Surprisingly Hard to Find!

Retailers go for cheapness of product rather than worrying about sourcing locally. Things that are commonly grown in the UK are bizarrely difficult to find! My local grocer only had mushrooms from Holland, whilst the supermarkets had British ones! Apples are seasonally available in the UK, yet even at this time of year most of them are grown in New Zealand!

It is WINTER!

It's cold, it's wet, and it's no good for growing fruit! There is very little British fruit available at this time of year. I found some DELICIOUS apples (Cameo variety, if you're interested), but of course there are no berries available until the summer. My beloved bananas don't grow here at all (well, they do in the Eden Project but they're not for sale).

Fortunately there are several vegetables ripe for munching at this time of year. As this calendar shows, it is peak carrot season! I've also been eating leeks, parsnips and cabbage, and cauliflower is around pretty much all year.

Lack of Caffeine

Caffeine is found in tea, coffee, chocolate and cola. None of these things grow in the UK, which made for a steep drop in my caffeine intake! It's not the withdrawal symptoms I had when I stopped drinking gallons of tea after my finals (headaches all day - I drank A LOT of tea!), but I've been feeling a lot more sleepy!

I feel like the grasshopper who sang all summer and is paying the price now that winter's here! I will definitely be getting my vegetable patch to work for me this year! Come back tomorrow for another post about this dratted challenge! :)

CHALLENGE: Best of British – Eat Local

It began with a debate

My family were eating dinner. My sister and father had fish, whilst my mother and I had vegetable fingers. I pointed out that their cod stocks are being heavily overfished and commercial fishing had a devastating impact on the environment.

My Dad said that was all very well, but what about the damage caused by the Mediterranean chickpeas and American haricot beans we were eating? The food miles would be in the thousands for each item on our plates!

Food miles

How much of what is on your plate is actually local? We eat food from all over the globe without a second thought; bananas from India, sugar from Brazil, peanuts from China. It travels thousands of miles, often by air, to reach shops while it is still fresh.

The government estimates that food transport to and around the UK accounts for around 15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year. That's more than the entire carbon output of several small countries!

The Challenge

I decided that for a week I will eat only British produce. This means no cane sugar, no tea or coffee (even Tregothnan tea, grown in Cornwall, is blended with imported Indian leaves), no peanut butter and a whole lot of label checking. Only things that are grown in the UK or made of 100% British ingredients are allowed.

I started on Thursday and found the challenge to be a lot harder than it sounds! I'll write more about the difficulties of it tomorrow!

I Am A Strange Google Search Term

It made me smile to read that someone had come across my blog by Googling, “did they create the recession to save the planet?”. If Governments were that altruistic and selfless (doing things for the good of the world, not just to win votes!) I think there would be a lot more hope for us all!

Ten Ways to Save the Planet for Free

Buy this energy saving gadget, eat extortionate organically grown vegetables. 

 

We are constantly being sold expensive products in order to try and reduce the enormous burden we place on the planet. Whilst I would definitely recommend some of these (low-wattage light bulbs, for example), there are many ways we can reduce waste and minimise consumption for free, which may well have more of an impact anyway! It is one of my New Year's Resolutions to implement all of the following methods wherever possible, and I hope you'll join me.

1. Recycle – Yes, yes, you can recycle your paper, cans, clothes and plastic at home, but recycling goes deeper than that. Can you repurpose things that you no longer want into something else? Frugal Down Under is amazing at turning old things into beautiful new gifts and items for the home. You can find a home for a lot of unwanted possessions on Freecycle. Use a comparison website to see who will give you the most money for recycling your old mobile phone, either for yourself or for charity.
2. Re-use plastic bags! – Shops in Wales charge a fee for plastic bags even at supermarkets now and it's only a matter of time before the rest of the UK follows suit. Re-use plastic bags you already have (for free), or invest in a few Bags For Life which can be replaced when they wear out. I travelled to Germany about six years ago and I was so impressed to see that people take along their own containers to buy fruit and veg, rather than using the little plastic bags we have. I can't believe this hasn't caught on here yet, so let's start doing it today!
3. Grow your own – Fresh, organic vegetables can be easily grown. The initial outlay for seeds and tools will be easily compensated by the amount you save later in the year by eating your own crops. Plan what you are going to grow – there are multitudes of websites to help with this (use one based in your own country). Dig out a vegetable patch, or turn over the soil of last year's patch if you already have one. You can begin planting in March. Use your waste vegetable matter (raw) to begin composting for a great fertiliser in a year's time. (See my beginner's guide to composting).
4. Turn it off! – Leaving a laptop on standby overnight uses 15-40 watts an hour, depending on whether the battery is charging. This alone will cost you a pound or two a week, which soon adds up when you think of all the other red lights blinking in the dark in your home.
5. Print sparingly – Print only when you have to, and always use both sides of the paper. You can even set documents to print two sheets per side, which is usually easily legible.
6. Don't buy bottled water – The Mother Nature Network states that bottled water results in 1.5 million tonnes of plastic each year and less than 20% of bottles are actually recycled. With prices of up to £1 per litre, bottled water can be nearly as expensive as petrol!
7. Short showers – Showers are viewed as less wasteful but try putting the plug in one day to see how much water you actually use. Aim to halve it.
8. Look after your possessions – Perform the required maintenance tasks, keep items clean and learn how to fix it when it is broken. Cars can actually use significantly less fuel if the oil is changed regularly and they are looked after properly. (See my post on hypermiling, the art of making fuel go further).
9. Get on your bike and ride – How long does it take you to drive to work? If you live within five miles of your workplace it will take less than 20 minutes to pedal yourself there. That is INCLUDING that great big hill on the way there, and think how much fun it'll be whizzing down it on the way home!
10. On-line banking – Stop the unread bank statements from cluttering up your home. You can keep a real-time eye on what's going in and out of your account using online banking. Make sure you have up-to-date anti-virus and firewall software installed. For more security advice, read this website.

Ten small ways to save money, reduce waste and save energy. Ten easy ways to make a difference. Join me in my mission to reduce my impact on the planet in 2012!

Will the Recession Save the World?

Humanity is destroying itself. We're lopping down forests, burning through fuel supplies and we're polluting the planet to a point where crops will start to fail. I don't personally believe humans as a species will last for another 1000 years, or even 500 years.

Yet there is still a glimmer of hope. We still have time to rectify the situation. To stabilise greenhouse gas levels at a safe level would cost 1% of the world's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to the Stern Review published in October 2006. The alternative is struggling to pay for failing ecosystem processes. Our planet is fantastic. It provides a huge range of habitats to support teeming millions of creatures and plants. We benefit from food, clean drinking water, pharmaceuticals from plants, regulated climate, pollination of crops, nutrient cycling, waste decomposition and disease control, not to mention all those processes we do not fully understand yet! If carbon emissions continue at the current rate we will lose some of the most vital things that Earth provides for us. The cost to the global economy will be 5-20% of the GDP, or 20 times more than the cost of acting now to prevent the loss.

Do people want to go green to save the planet? Can they be bothered? Until recently the answer was “no” in most cases.

The recession has been rubbish for everyone, with millions of people unemployed in the UK and a huge hike in the cost of living. In the news the other day they reported that people weren't planning to turn on their central heating until it gets colder because of the 18% rise in energy costs. As long as people are staying safe, surely this is a good thing! People feel that they should be able to walk round their home in shorts and a t-shirt, even in the middle of winter! By putting on a few extra layers instead of flicking on the heating you are saving yourself money as well as cutting down your carbon footprint. I'm currently writing this from the comfort of a blanket and shawl, with fluffy woolly socks keeping my toes toasty. A safe room temperature is about 16°C (61°F), which isn't warm but it's not uncomfortably cold (older people and young children may need a slightly higher temperature). If you're only going to be in one room (for example at night), just heat the one room instead of your entire house!

Another “benefit” of the recession is the ridiculous price of petrol/diesel. The cheapest prices in our area currently are 133.9 pence per litre for petrol and 138.9p/L for diesel. (It's quite harsh that Cornwall has some of the highest fuel prices in the country, yet some of the worst public transport and lowest wages to boot!) The days of going for a drive for something to do are over. A year ago, The Boyfriend and I would occasionally drive to the 24hr Tesco (~25 mile round trip) to get a DVD to watch, but lately we've said “ehhh.. fuel costs too much”! I'm sure a lot of people are reducing their weekly miles to save money, which has got to have a good impact on the environment!

The question is how much of a reduction will be enough? The Government has pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 12.5% by 2012 (from 1990 levels) and by 80% by 2050. Will we meet these targets, and will it be enough to stop global climate change from escalating?

The recession is causing people to live more frugally and environmentally friendly. Will the recession save the planet?