For 7 days I’m doing the #wheresmyfoodfrom challenge to know where my food is from. I think it is pretty easy to eat only food from a known source if you are not on a tight budget, you could just shop locally and organically at the nearest Farmers Market. I used to work on the veg stall, and then the fish stall at our local Farmers Market and I can tell you that it is not cheap. It is amazing food, but it wouldn’t fit in with what I have to spend. Especially as the Very Hungry Teenager has a flip top head where food is concerned.
I want to avoid any hint of holier than though, better than you, making more of an effort than you are to be green…. in these posts about food sources. Any small change is better than no change and I’ll work within my financial limitations and time constraints to make small changes where I can.
My goal for this 7 day challenge is to identify easy, affordable changes I can make so that we are eating more local food.
Where is my breakfast from?
My shopping at the moment is a combination of a local organic veg box, Lidl, Tescos and sometimes the local butcher and baker. Most days I have some chopped up fruit, nuts and Greek yoghurt for breakfast. I thought it would be interesting to see where it is all from.
- Blueberries – Chile
- Apples – France
- Bananas – unknown
- Nuts – unknown, via Lidl
- Yoghurt – unknown farm, UK, via Tesco
- Grapes – unknown
- Sultanas – unknown
I shop zero waste as often as I can so some of my fruit and veg has no label.
The Food Miles Calculator says
“Assuming your blueberries have come from the capital, Santiago traveling to the capital London, they have traveled approximately 7254 miles (11672km)”
The apples traveled a couple of hundred miles from France and I am pretty sure we don’t have any local banana farms near Bristol.
Why did I buy from so far away?
I didn’t check the label when I bought the blueberries. I saw the logo for ‘Rosedene Farms’ with the little tree and it looked vaguely like it came from the UK, or near. I didn’t think to look further. I’ve just googled Rosedene Farms and they don’t actually exist as farms. Rosedene is a brand, designed to make people like me shop think that fruit from thousands of miles away is cosily British.
What can I change?
I don’t want to give up blueberries. I’ll probably need some more later this week but this time I’ll read the label. I know we grow really good apples in the UK, I even have an apple tree in my little garden so there is no need to eat French apples.
So, there one takeaway from finding out where my food is from is to read the labels. That isn’t that difficult!
