Delivery Time

With a new year comes a new veg box from the Riverford box company. My friendly delivery man David managed to call during a brief 30 minutes of sunshine on Thursday, I hope he didn't get too rained on during his rounds. 

This weeks box contained classic January UK veg including carrots, potatoes and leeks. A few Spanish imports of cherry tomatoes, ramiro peppers and broccoli brightened things up, giving a bit of variety, but I can never decide if this irritates me or not. It's lovely to have peppers and tomatoes in January (especially knowing they're organic and shipped rather than flown across) but when you buy a veg box to get a sense of the seasons it seems almost counter productive. It does however make meals easier. I'm the only one eating the green veg so if we got just that it would take me weeks and weeks to get through. 

January is great for some veg, such as kale, potatoes and cabbage but it's definitely not a very fruity season. After the deluge of oranges, satsumas and other citrus fruits over Christmas January feels a bit boring. I always thought oranges must be out of season and flown across the world for Christmas but according to the Riverford website they get their oranges from Spain between October and April, so I know what I'm buying in my next box. Although it's still Spanish and not as local as my UK apples I got this week.

As well as maybe getting some Spanish oranges next time I'm considering another addition to my regular order. Riverford offer meat boxes as well as their veg ones. The cheapest one is about £30 but you do seem to get a lot from it; a stock pack, beef pot roast (1kg), pork belly joint (700g), beef diced (400g), 4-6 lamb chops and chicken quarters. The website says this should last two adults about a fortnight, which for us is probably about right as we only have meat about 4 times a week. 

The convenience of getting all our veg and meat delivered is quite tempting especially because you couldn't get it as locally or all organic in the supermarket. What I'd really love is a local farm shop somewhere close to Preston but I haven't found one yet, maybe I'm not looking hard enough.

Eggcelent Choice

I am proud of my farming heritage. My grandparents owned a small dairy farm in rural Northamptonshire and now my aunt and uncle run an organic egg farm only a couple of villages over. I always feel a link back to the countryside and the farming landscape even though I have no day to day experience of it. I didn't grow up on a farm but I have many happy memories of playing in the fields and "helping" with the farm chores when I was little and visiting, although I doubt how much actual help we were when feeding the lambs or herding the cattle.

Farming is a hard profession, even more so now that supermarkets are trying to push down prices for customers which often means pushing down profits for the farmers not the shops. During my lifetime, partly to cope with this, farming has become much more industrial with the use of chemicals, fertilisers, antibiotics and intensive methods. This often means bad news for wildlife and the environment as intensive methods and chemicals push wildlife out to the very edges of the countryside. I've talked about Fairtrade and the benefits for the environment and farmers that paying a fair price has but haven't yet talked about organic farming and the benefits this has in this country and abroad.

The Soil Association is the main certification body for organic farming in the U.K. For farms to be organic they must satisfy strict standards:

• Artificial chemicals are prohibited
• Pesticides are strictly restricted
• Animal welfare is at the heart of farming with a truly free-range life for animals
• Diversity and rotation of crops and animals allows the soil time to recover and prevents the build up of pests and diseases in the soil
• The routine use of drugs, antibiotics and wormers is banned
• The use of genetically modified crops and ingredients is banned

I always get my eggs from my uncle and aunts farm, this sometimes means travelling by train with a rucksack containing a dozen eggs but normally they survive the trip. When they first started farming organic eggs it was amazing to see the contrast with the normal shop bought eggs. Not only do they last much longer (because we get them straight from the farm which makes them about two weeks fresher than buying them in the shops) but their colour, taste and size is different.

Organic, free-range eggs have a much deeper colour and taste, well, more eggy than battery farmed eggs. The yolks are the colour of oranges rather than the pale yellow of primroses. Also, shops want standard size eggs and this hasn't yet been communicated down to the chickens. Because of this we often get the too big or too small eggs that can't be sold in shops. When a new batch of hens comes to the farm they often start by laying double or triple yolk eggs (I've no idea why) and so these eggs are much too big for the shops so we get them. My university friends were amazed by double yolk eggs and I hadn't realised this was an uncommon thing. It can make cake making tricky but an extra yolk in scrambled eggs is a brilliant treat.

Organic farms must adhere to strict welfare conditions and the hens have freedom to roam the fields during daylight and are put away to bed in large sheds when night falls to protect them from foxes and other predators. It's quite amazing to see thousands of hens wandering around in a field but they do look quite happy-as happy as hens can look.

Because pesticides, chemicals and antibiotics are restricted or banned on organic farms the soil and natural environment has time to recover and bloom. Farmers are encouraged to incorporate wildlife friendly schemes into their farms which helps to bring back the balance between nature and farming which is needed to get the full potential out of organic farming.

There are of course downsides to organic farming. It takes up more land, sometimes uses more energy (battery farming is unethical but very energy efficient) and water and doesn't always produce as high yields as intensive farming but the benefits of yummier food, happier animals and better environment must surely be worth something.

How organic farming is used globally and the more general impacts, pros and cons it has are discussions for another blog. For now I'm off to enjoy some bright yellow scrambled eggs! Have a nice Sunday and if you're ever in Waitrose why not try the Organic Free-range Columbian Blacktail eggs, you might even be eating some from my relatives farm!

Fair Cities

I've lived in two cities in my life and by chance both have been certified Fairtrade Cities. As much as I like the idea this doesn't mean their ingredients all satisfy high environmental and ethical standards but that as a community the city has signed up to support the Fairtrade movement.

Preston gained it's Fairtrade status in 2004. To do this the businesses, residents, schools and colleges all signed up to help end world poverty by promoting, buying and selling Fairtrade products. There are five criteria that must be met, these are:

1. Council: Local council passes a resolution supporting Fairtrade and serves Fairtrade products whenever possible.
2. Commerce: A range of Fairtrade products are available from local retail outlets (the number is determined by how big the city/town is).
3. Community: Local workspaces and community groups support Fairtrade and use Fairtrate products whenever possible.
4. Common consensus: Media coverage and events raise awareness and understanding of Fairtrade across the community.
5. Captains: A local Fairtrade steering group is convened to ensure the Fairtrade campaigns continue to develop and gain new support.

Other than the sign as you enter Preston I hadn't really thought much about its Fairtrade status. I know there are several ethical produce shops in the centre but I haven't seen much else advertised.  An additional requirement for Fairtrade cities is that they have a Fairtrade Directory. I've just found the one for Preston and as well as the supermarkets and cafes I already know about there are lots more to seek out and try.

There are lots of Fairtrade Towns and Cities around the country. Why not look up your nearest and find out about campaigns and activities near you? Or if you don't have one near by look for the shops and groups that support Fairtrade where you live.

Snack Time

Well after a three hour train journey from Leicester back to Preston today I didn't do very well with my I Spy train list.  I saw a river, bridge over the railway, some flooding, a road, graffiti, budleia and a successful traveller making a dash for an almost departing train. I only managed one church spire before darkness closed in and the dark is my excuse for missing the rest of my list. Hopefully I'll do better later in the week when I'm on another train.

When I'm on train journeys I try to make sure I take food and drink with me, mainly because of the prices on trains and at stations but also because there seems to be a serious lack of "ethical" snacks. This has mainly been an assumption up to now but today I thought I'd check out the on board shop on my Virgin train to see if I could back it up with facts.

I was  happily surprised to find that all the hots drinks were Fairtrade and according to the shop menu,

Virgin Trains is proud to use only Fairtrade Certified hot drinks, to help protect farmers and deliver you the very best quality.

 I'm quite impressed by this and I like the fact that, on these trains at least, the ethical choice is now the only choice. There aren't that many places where only Fairtrade drinks are served, although there were still fizzy drinks which were Fairtrade.

The only other Fairtrade items I found were some Fairtrade Jelly Beans (I didn't even realise they existed!). There were also some UK produced oat bars which had "fully recyclable packaging". The packaging was plastic and while it probably is recyclable somewhere I doubt it would be accepted by my council. On the recycling topic it annoys me that there is nowhere to recycle on trains, not even behind the shop counter.

In general I was pleased that there were ethical/environmental options for both food and drink, but there's still a fair way to go. It would be great if Fairtrade was the norm for all products that could be.

Thankfully I avoided the shop choices as I'd brought a snack with me. This weekend I tried making roasted pumpkin seeds for the first time. They were a lot better than I expected and very easy to make. Remove all the seeds from the pumpkin, brush a tiny bit of oil onto a hot frying pan and then put in the seeds. Wait until the seeds swell and turn brown and then remove from the heat and cover with sugar/salt/chilli powder or paprika. I think I used a bit too much chilli powder but they were great otherwise and staved off hunger until I got home to finish off the last of last weeks pork.

These boots are made for walking

The U.K. government website says

In the UK, more carbon dioxide (CO2) comes from people’s car travel than from any other kind of UK transport. Reducing your car travel is a key step to reducing climate change effects and local air pollution.

Nearly a quarter of all car trips are under two miles, a distance you can cycle in less than 15 minutes. Cycling and walking distances under two miles could help you get fitter and save you money in fuel. 

 The two mile rule is commonly used to separate journeys which should never use cars and those which it's OK to drive for. According to Google Maps my work place is 2.4 miles away by car and 1.9 miles away if I walk so I'm just under the key limit. It takes me 40-45 minutes to walk to work which I don't mind if it's an eight hour shift but if I'm just going to the gym (which is on the same site) for an hour I spend more time getting there than the activity. Now, I know it's ridiculous to drive to a gym when you can walk it (you're going for the exercise!), but a 45 minute walk on dark rainy streets just doesn't seem as appealing as working out comfortably inside on a treadmill with a TV attached. I am trying thought.

Next week I have three early shifts and I'm going to walk them all, at least I won't have to work as hard at the gym. Walking rather than driving also means I get to know my local area better. I read the street signs (best one I've see yet is Penguin Street) and look at local shops. I notice the weather more, appreciating the sun when it's there and really feeling the change in seasons. I'm not saying it feels better than the 10 minute drive and the extra 30 minutes in bed but I am feeling more connected to the place I live and less in a bubble of one.

Cycling to work would take a lot less time and it's something I mean to do in the future. Over the summer I was given a second hand old bike which needs a lot of TLC before it's ridable but once pay day comes I'll be kitting it out ready for the winter months-anything to give me 5 more minutes sleep when I'm working earlies!

Almost everyone is used to having a car nowadays. Living in the countryside you think of hiking and nice walks but I find it much easier to avoid car journeys now I'm in a city than I did before. A 45 minute walk to the next village seems easier to justify the car for than one across town to the gym. We're lucky that we don't need the car for any essentials very often. My boyfriend can walk to work (and is much better at it than me!) and we have small shops close by that we can walk to for essentials. The veg box gets delivered when we need it and we only have to use the car for long journeys to visit family or for a big monthly supermarket shop for bulk buying essentials like tinned food, pasta and rice. I'm begging to get addicted to the smug feeling when you can see the fuel gauge in the car is still about the quarter tank mark, weeks after first filling up, but as the winter creeps in I'm worried my will power won't last. I'll just have to make sure my boots are ready for lots of walking and see it as an extra gym session.

Which green habits do you find hardest to stick to and what does the change in seasons mean for your weekly routine? I'd love to hear from you so just post a message below!

A Long Way For A Drink

How far would you go for a good bottle of wine? Even if you buy wine from across the street the chances are that the bottle and contents have had a long journey to your door.

English wine, although getting more common, isn't a mainstream product just yet. The English wines I've tried are delicious but it's not always easy to find them in your local supermarket. Wine from some of our nearest neighbours, France, Spain and Germany, are common in our shops though as well as bottles from further a field such as Australia, Chile and South Africa.

If we're trying to live more sustainable lives isn't it a contradiction to only buy local food but to buy wine from the other side of the planet? Following this line of thought I tend to automatically buy wines from France and Spain, ruling out wines from other countries even if they're Faritrade (more on that later). I always thought this must be better for the environment but after looking into it a bit more I'm not so sure. After reading an article on the carbon footprint of wines, here, I realised, as with food, it matters much more how the wine travels to my glass not always from where.

Only around 2% of the environmental impact of food comes from it's transportation but this figure could be as high as 34% for wine. A new initiative is to bulk ship wines and then bottle at the location of sale. For countries such as Australia this could reduce the carbon emissions of wine transport by 40%. This is great for large brands but impractical for small producers. 

Once bottled it's also important to look at how the wine is transported. It's been calculated that a bottle of wine from Chile, shipped by sea container from Valparaiso to Felixstowe and then by road to Bristol uses about 318g of CO2. This is hard to comprehend but when I read that the average car uses 170g CO2 per kilometre it puts it into perspective. Wine from Spain and France may be shipped but may also be brought by truck which will have a higher carbon footprint. The real problem for most buyers who are trying to be ethical is there's no way of knowing exactly how the wine got to this country. I don't know if anything is being done about this at the moment but I'll definitely look at wines from further away more closely now as I can pretty much guarantee they'll have been shipped in.

Fairtrade was mentioned earlier. I'm almost addicted to the Faritrade logo, and if I see it on a product I automatically want to buy it, even if it's something I don't need. You often see the logo on wine from countries outside Europe such as Chile or Argentina or South Africa. Now I've stopped ruling these wines out I'll definitely pick more Fairtrade bottles up in the shops. The reason Fairtrade isn't used in all countries is because it's mainly a way of helping growers in developing countries. In Europe we already have minimum wage and employment laws to protect workers but other places don't have the same protection. As with all Fairtrade products the farms must pursue sustainable growing techniques, minimise use of chemicals, pay a fair wage and help support local community and social development.

So to round up the past few wine filled days: I'll definitely stick to picking wines which use corks (to help the wildlife I talked about yesterday) but I'll look more at wines from countries further away than Europe as they might not have higher travel emissions. If I do buy wine from developing countries I'll always buy Fairtrade so I know that my money goes to the farmers and also supports sustainable development.

Growing My Own

It's Friday and that means a new veg box arrived yesterday!

This week my vegbox was

• Onions
• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Salad leaves
• Red peppers
• Leeks
• Cauliflower

All of the veg is UK grown except the peppers which come from Spain. My UK veg comes from Home Farm in Yorkshire and is grown by Peter Richardson and his team of farm workers. The farm was converted to organic in 1996 and Peter clearly feels it gets them closer to both their crops and customers. On the Riverford website he says

"You feel more of an intimate relationship as you weed the crops, rather than just going across with a sprayer. "

"There’s a closer connection with the customer, there’s no two ways about it. "

He has a closer relationship with customers because, unlike before, the veg is now packed on the farm. He can see what is being sold each week and it leaves the farm exactly how it arrives on my door. Previously the veg left the farm to be packed and then sent on to be sold.
Another benefit is that, unlike for the supermarkets, there are less restrictions on size and shape of the vegetables, just taste and quality matter. For the supermarket packaging courgettes had to be less than 21cm, now they just have to be delicious and ripe.

Looking forward to cooking up some yummy meals with all this. Last week I used the sweet potatoes, carrots, potatoes and onions to make soup. It was great and very orange. We used four portions up after we cooked it and I've frozen another 5-6 in the freezer. All I did was fry/roast the veg, blend it all and add about a pint of chicken stock and some spices.

Lettuce on the left and middle, chilies on the right where you
can see the cardboard sticks they were planted next to.

I've been growing some food of my own too. Three weeks ago I planted some very old lettuce and chili seeds in a box on my kitchen windowsillNow they've started growing and soon the lettuce will be ready to start picking and chilies will be ready to be planted up into separate pots. I love having nice green leaves growing in the house while everything outside is dying back. It was so easy, as long as I don't forget to water them every few days!

What's In A Name?

Light Green, Dark Green, Bright Green, Sustainable, Eco-friendly, Environmental, Ethical, Fairtrade, Organic, FSC, Rainforest Alliance certified, Responsibly sourced, Local, Free range...

The list seems endless but what do all these labels stand for? If I'm going to green my life first I need to decide what that actually means.

To start with, the list can be split into two groups. Those which guarantee the product meets certain minimum conditions and others which sound nice but don't guarantee anything.

The five which do guarantee standards are:

Fairtrade - If a product has this label then it satisfies a list of social, economic and environmental standards set by the Fairtrade International Organisation. These standards include a fair wage for the producers, investment into development for the community and long term contracts so that growers can plan securely and sustainably.
Organic - Being organic tends to mean no chemicals, pesticides, genetic modification or other synthetic inputs. Any product that is labelled organic must meet strict UK, European and international standards. The most common organic certification is the Soil Association's. This exceeds the minimum requirements and assures that farms have high animal welfare standards, promote wildlife, don't use genetic modification or pesticides/chemicals and pursue sustainable farming techniques.
FSC - This stands for Forest Stewardship Council. The FSC logo appears on products that have come from well managed forests, so you can be certain you aren't contributing to the further destruction of global forests. These products range from furniture to toilet paper!
Rainforest Alliance certified - Similar to Faritrade (as far as I can see) this label guarantees that farms meet the standards of the Sustainable Agriculture Network. This means the farms use sustainable farm management and are also working towards improving local social and environmental standards. This label focuses more on sustainable farming than fair pay but still aims to promote economically sustainable farming methods so farmers have security too.
Free range - This is only a binding term for poultry and eggs in the UK. So if it says free rage on any other meat products it doesn't guarantee anything, although it's probably a good sign.
For chickens free range means continuous daytime access to open-air runs for at least half their lifetime. It also guarantees a slaughter age of at least 56 days, just less than two months! There are a few different standards for chickens and it's all a bit confusing. I'll do another blog on this another time once I've figured it out!
For eggs, free range means the hens have had continuous access to outdoor runs "mainly covered with vegetation" but sheds are often used where the hens have less than a square foot each. Again, there are lots of similar labels and I'll discuss this in more detail another time.


There's another way to split the labels too. Those which correspond to products such as food, furniture, appliances, and those which describe people and lifestyles such as light, dark and bright green. I'll talk more about these people labels tomorrow.

Food For Thought

Where does your food come from? Local food isn't a new issue but it's one that's easy not to think about and might seem hard to do something about.

When I started university my answer would have been Tesco. After a closer look at some plastic packaging I could probably have managed a country of origin or production for some foods. It's an interesting exercise. Pick a selection of foods from your fridge and cupboards, guess where they come from, then see if you're right. I got a shock when I found my apples had been flown in from Chile when I could see fresh, ripe apples growing outside in England.

Now, at least for fruit and veg, I've grown used to knowing country and county (even farm most of the time) before the food arrives home. I think that makes me quite unusual. No, I don't wander the supermarkets making lists of where each apple comes from. The key to my food knowledge is my veg box, which arrives fortnightly or weekly depending on how much I use/need each week.

My parents started having a veg box at home when I was a teenager, so I've grown up with the idea. But if you haven't heard of it before this is how they normally work:

1. Order your box online or by phone
2. Enter your delivery address and payment details
3. Receive your veg box to your door

About as easy as ordering something from Amazon and just like Amazon once you set up your details and first order it just gets easier (isn't it interesting that things get easier when people want your money?). You can set up a regular order, so you don't have to do anything except receive your box each week, or you can add, change or cancel your order each week. You don't even have to be home when they deliver with some box schemes.

A quick search online brings up more than 10 different veg box schemes in my local area. I use Riverford Organic Veg which is quite a large scheme but has kept it's produce local by splitting into regional farm areas. This week my mini box (£9.85) contained (and came from):

• Onions (UK)
• Carrots (UK)
• Broccoli (UK)
• Sweet Potatoes (UK)
• Cabbage (UK)
• Lettuce (UK)
• Cherry Tomatoes (Spain)

As well as only selling organic produce Riverford never airfreight their food, they ship it by boat or lorry which has a lower carbon footprint. My mini box claims to be suitable for 1-2 people for a week (for me often two weeks), usually includes potatoes, carrots and onions and always contains 7-8 different types of veg. The thing I love is that it changes every week. There's no wandering the supermarket deciding what to pick this week, you get whatever's ripe, in season and at its best.

I'll talk more about my veg box in the future; about how ethical/environmentally friendly it is or isn't, price comparisons with the supermarkets and what I'm getting each week as we head deeper into Autumn. Maybe even some recipes!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on my blog. So if you're reading this please comment, even if it's just to say "Hello!"