Taking baby steps has worked!
This week we’ve stuck to buying British for our meat and veg.
I even managed to pop into the fabulous Covered Market in Oxford town center where I got a pretty good selection of meats: Pork chops, chicken wings and chicken drums and thighs. The 3 packs for £6. This worked out to just a slither more expensive than my usual supermarket haul. However, each of these were seasoned which I normally wouldn’t bother paying more for.
Our veg was seasonal- savoy cabbage, potatoes, onions, carrots and parsnips. All great ingredients to work with.
Fruit, I found, is impossible to buy local, even British at this time of year. I did say no to the Chilean grapes though, despite the tempting specials deal on it.
Over the weekend I looked into sourcing food locally, even bulk buying to get a more comparable price too my supermarket price. I’ve started with meat:
From Big Barn, a website that lists local producers, I’ve found a pig farmer and a castle and sheep farmer.
I called both and had a chat about my requirements with both.
The pig farmer, a really lovely chap, called me back yesterday to say he just taken a pig to slaughter that would fit my needs. I wanted a girl pig because I’m not good with boar smell of meat since I worked in a pig AI station (that’s artificial insemination not intelligence! And an AI station is like a brothel for pigs, except the boars get a hand job from humans instead of pretty girl pigs…but I digress!) So the pig is ready for me to specify what parts I want and how I want it butchered. Hahaha! This is where I get unstuck: I have no clue how I want it butchered and exactly what cuts I want!
This is a discussion I will need to have with a, hopefully very patient, butcher.
The sheep and beef farmer had given me, what I thought, was a good price- £80- for half a lamb (12-15kg of meat). When I called back to confirm I would like to place the order I left a message on their answering machine. That was Monday. I’ve yet to hear back from them.
…So that’s my progress in reducing our food miles.
Have you taken any steps to reduce your food footprint?
Maybe eaten more seasonal, shopped locally, come up with a fabulous recipe for seasonal produce?
Feel free to leave a link of all related posts below in the comments
Image credit: Earth Trust
You can join the Friday Footprint challenge with current blog posts about:
- shopping locally- what treasures are you finding?
- buying seasonal
- meal plans from seasonal produce
- growing your own produce- it could be herbs or salads or keeping chickens for their eggs
- delicious recipes using seasonal produce
Sounds like a great challenge. I like it!
Does it have to be fresh? If not, you might want to look into frozen (UK) berries – equally healthy, and cheaper.
well i try to buy local, well i did shop local when we were in the UK. South Africa has a wide range of local products, however we did import a few ‘essentials’ to our monthly shop, usually in the form of visitors. In Dubai I buy food based on price wherever it comes from, I’m not sure ‘local’ would provide me with much other than camel ilk, but I really should explore that option a little bit more, esp with my husband working in the food industry he will be able to tell me exactly what is manufactured here. I think there will be a blog post at some point soon as I’ve already been noting down how many ‘foreign food’ aisles there are here