No Impact Week/Our High Impact Diet!!!
Oh dear, we've been vegetarian (mainly vegan) for over 20 years & our kids have been veggie all their lives, so what a shock we have had over the last couple of days - discovering that even though we buy all our organic grains & pulses from a wholefood wholesaler in bulk, not a lot of it is from the UK...
Some months ago, we had long discussions about whether it would be possible for us to live on just Cornish produced food & we realised just how difficult that would be. We debated whether it is better to eat locally grown non-organic vegetables, instead of organic food from further afield & for us the organic food was more important, still is. There is a farm shop just a mile away from where we live, but most of it isn't organic. The farmer's market is 16 miles away in Truro, so we buy a veg box, which is delivered once a week. We have in the past, grown our own - but we rent our house & our landlord doesn't want us to dig up his lawn (which he cares for lovingly)! We occasionally put a few bits in amongst the shrubs, but it's so wet here in the summer - the slugs just take over, slugs which are immune to all humane repellents...
There is a Cornish wheat grower & miller, but it's not organic, so we have for many years bought organic flour in bulk for our bread making from a mill in Gloucestershire. The problem is - they buy their wheat from all over the world... So we decided to buy the grain instead & thought we would get a second-hand mill - well we keep looking, but haven't come across one that we're really happy with yet!
We have already vowed that this year is the year we stop buying canned & pre-packed freezer foods, we're going to make more effort to cook everything from fresh & eat only seasonal foods - it's easy to say this now when our work is quiet, but will we keep it up during the summer, when we work long hours?
We are definitely going to buy as much locally produced food as possible & stop buying grains & pulses from far flung countries. Does this mean a radical change of diet? Well, maybe we won't get the variety of food we are accustomed to, but it will certainly be an interesting challenge!
This is another reason why a move to France is very appealing - they grow 3 of our favourite foods:
Red Carmague Rice, Puy Lentils & Green Olives
How can we live without them?
As for today, we started off with porridge - oats, oat milk, seeds, fruit, cinnamon & molasses.
Finishing off with Sime's curried leftover surprise - yesterday's lentil stew & steamed veg, served up with extra onions, garlic & mushrooms. On a bed of brown basmati rice, flavoured with cardamoms & turmeric.
Any leftovers get used the following day, so we never have any food waste. It all just keeps going on & on...
Kay :0)
If you thought that was tough, what about today's challenge?
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your efforts to cut down on canned and frozen food.
Have you considered Dove's Farm flour? It is organic and they say they source 'many raw materials from the local Wessex area'.
Have used Dove's Farm in the past, but we quite like coarse, nutty tasting flour - perhaps I'll check them out again...
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