We have all heard that to live sustainably we should eat food with a low carbon footprint and less meat and dairy products. But in a cost-of-living crisis where supermarkets are still importing cheap fruit and veg and selling non-British dairy and meat products, how should we decide what is the best way to go?
With the cost of gas and electricity we are all trying to find new ways to cook to save time, energy and most importantly, our money. We have tv shows promising to show us meals for a minimum amount of spending (but the numbers are a little naughty, you have to keep an eye on how many portions the meal has been calculated for!) People are turning to halogen ovens or air fryers for what is being sold as a lower cost way of cooking your food as it is quicker and can use less electricity (but not always). Then we have the determined folk who are trying to BBQ everything. Now global warming does mean it is getting hotter in this country; however, we are also seeing more storms and rain which many of us would not enjoy cooking through outside on a BBQ!
Next we have the people who obsessively scour the various apps looking for food that is going to waste that some shops are bagging up to sell cheaper, but this unfortunately only works if you have a omnivore diet or know people you can pass any of the animal products to, as it defeats the point if you manage to grab yourself a bag then want to bin half of the items.
And now we come to those who order food in, go out for meals or pay a premium for what is essentially a limited box of items which can include fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, grains etc. Nice and balanced maybe, but what is the actual growing history of the items in the box? Is it organic, has it travelled from another country, were the animals farmed ethically etc. These options are often seen as being too expensive but for some, the time saved from cooking and shopping outweighs all else. However, not all these home delivery boxes actually save you time from cooking, they are simply pre-measured ingredients in separate packaging that still require you to chop, boil, sauté, roast, fry…but the nice recipe cards make you feel that you are having a fancy meal for half the effort. Something that is also forgotten is that although you think your time is saved on big meals, you still need to use a shop for breakfast, lunches, basics to fill the cupboard, snacks, fruit, meaning that the cost effectiveness and time saving is not actually real. It is simply another subscription service that takes the thinking out of meals.
We also face the battle of eating out and ordering in for those who are eco conscious but want to avoid using our ovens and tell ourselves that we could be useful in avoiding the waste from takeaways that is unavoidable on a daily basis whilst also helping a business to stay open on our ever-decreasing high streets (remember “Eat Out to Help Out”, thanks to the terrible handling of the country’s finances this does not appear to have been of use, as many restaurants including big chains are having to close thus creating redundancies and more people struggling to work out whether the cost of living will prevent them from eating sustainably).
Many people seem to turn to social media to find out who they are and what they want to do, even in cooking. The endless stream of people cooking “quick and easy” or “healthy” dishes that people want to mimic then find either the recipe does not work or because the video was filmed in another country, half the products are either twice the price or not readily available. The answer, I think, lies in our history and schooling.
No, I am not saying we should go back to living on the rations that the country faced during the Second World War, but we should take some inspiration from the older generations who learned to cook on a shoestring budget, stretching out food items as far as possible so there was little to no waste at all. People also had to eat food that was in season as we could not import so many different foods as we can now, particularly not for such a cheap price. Home grown fruit and vegetables were everywhere. Local butchers would sell all the cuts of meat, not just the popular ones as we were encouraged to grow up and learn to cook (yes, this may have mostly been directed at women at the time, but again, we don’t need to repeat history, just learn from it). With a quick search on the internet or by borrowing books from your local library you could set yourself up with even just a few home grown items and make jam, preserves, or just cook and eat! There is a cost to the initial output of such ideas but the happiness it can create and knowing that the travel to the plate is from your garden/balcony/window sill straight to your kitchen is a satisfying one.
We also need to make a push in our schools for food technology. This has been severely hampered by the government’s decision in 2015 to abolish the A-Level for this subject. Why would students or schools care about teaching a subject that stops at 16 within higher education until you pass onto university or manage to get an apprenticeship? Speaking to younger friends and family it is terrifying how few people learned in school to cook a basic meal (usually for four people) with minimal ingredients and the food theory behind it all and of course, the option to buy the little cookbook from the school which had been put together with all the meals deemed suitable for children to be able to cook on their own from lasagne to swiss rolls.
So should we stay in or should we go out?
Of course, the answer generally lies with staying in. We need to plan our meals, make our own recipe cards and if we are making items that work out cheaper to cook in larger potions then we need to remember to freeze the leftovers (or pop them in the refrigerator) for another day. Not many of us want the same meal daily but when we freeze leftovers we essentially are creating our own ready meals! Preparation is key to living sustainably at a low cost.