My challenge

avantra

I am thinking of doing something to raise funds for my favourite charity. What I have in mind is to go for one year eating only food grown, caught and raised in the UK! (I can see HFW jumps in joy) . Maybe do some publicity for my effort and collect few sponsorships along the way.

I understand that this will be hard and requires a lot of preparation, especially as I am married, expecting to adopt soon and do most of the cooking.

I live in a rural area with good access to hedges/fields/apple trees and have one 5x13m allotment strip, 3 chickens and a large polytunell which can be a good starting point (I think). I will have to give up almost all processed food which I don’t mind.

I am trying to find what ingredients/food I will need to give up and so far came with a very partial list, can you help me expand it? I might put it on other forums on the net to expand the search and for a starting point I am looking at November

1. Rice
2. Chocolate (oh dear..):eek:
3. Sugar
4. Bananas and any other tropical fruits
5. Citruses
6. Palm Oil
7. Soy Oil
8. Sunflower Oil
9. Most spices bar salt and herbs
10. Margarine (?)
11. Some nuts

FrugalLina

Oh, what a great idea!

I cannot help much, apart from letting you know about a group in my area who are doing it based on food from Fife: http://www.fifediet.co.uk

They might be worth contacting for support/advice.

I hope you do a blog or something, I would love to read about it.

Lina x

artichoke

a friend of mine did this for a year - only eating food from within 100 miles of her home...

what she found the hardes was not being able to eat out at all....

also have you thought about

yeast, bread - do you make your own? can you always get uk flour?


will you miss pasta, lentils and other pulses?

will potatoes get a bit boring?

I completely support your aim - i myself work in local food and retail food from within my own county....

I eat a lot of local food - and as part of my job i create menus using locally sourced food - when i am doing very strict menus using only local food i do crave sometimes the spices and lentils, rice etc to make a really good spicy curry...

let us know how you get on....

Art

babyshoes

That's a helluva challenge! Other things I would add to the list:

Most spices, including pepper
Olive oil, unless you can find a small grower in the UK
Most wine and a lot of other alcohol. Hope you either don't drink or like beer!
Most pre-made pasta

On the plus side, I think some sugar is made here - doesn't the UK grow sugar beet? If you can find out the origins of the sugar, you could take it off your list!

Best of luck, will be interested to see how you do.

avantra

babyshoes wrote: »

That's a helluva challenge! Other things I would add to the list:

Most spices, including pepper
Olive oil, unless you can find a small grower in the UK
Most wine and a lot of other alcohol. Hope you either don't drink or like beer!
Most pre-made pasta

On the plus side, I think some sugar is made here - doesn't the UK grow sugar beet? If you can find out the origins of the sugar, you could take it off your list!

Best of luck, will be interested to see how you do.

Dooh! of course sugar beet, I completely forgot, thank you so much, some cakes will be a positive thing.

FrugalLina

You could use honey as an alternative to sugar, too, I suppose. I have a feeling sugar (via beet) production stopped in the UK after the end of the war as it became much cheaper to import it once shipping opened up again. The beets are still grown for cattle though.

I would really miss coffee and tea!

DundeeDoll

I'd really miss tea and coffe. But good for you. I might do an amended challenge some time where i have a fixed budget for non-local. Do keep us up to date

DundeeDoll

Pretty sure you'e ok with sugar from beet. Just look for the uk tractor thingy.

Oh yes frugalina i'd forgotten about the fife diet. I seem to recall pip archer doing something similar (last lent?) i know i know it's only a soap, but still intersting

avantra

FrugalLina wrote: »

You could use honey as an alternative to sugar, too, I suppose. I have a feeling sugar (via beet) production stopped in the UK after the end of the war as it became much cheaper to import it once shipping opened up again. The beets are still grown for cattle though.

I would really miss coffee and tea!

Sugar from beet is a top industry here in the UK, in 2009 we were one of the top ten producers in the world, google BritshSugar, I think they are in East Anglia, good point about honey.:T

THIRZAH

Have you read Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"?
Her family did something similar in the USA-tried to only eat food produced in their area- but I think they did allow themselves a few extras such as coffee and olive oil.

It's an interesting book and gives a few recipes for each season

Don't they grow a small amount of tea in Cornwall-I'm sure I read something about it?

FrugalLina

avantra wrote: »

Sugar from beet is a top industry here in the UK, in 2009 we were one of the top ten producers in the world, google BritshSugar, I think they are in East Anglia, good point about honey.:T

Oh, that is great to know - I shall look out for it in future!