"Eat the Change" - a week of eating a bit funny ;-)

[Jodie]

More out of curiosity than ideology I've let myself be persuaded, quite cheerfully as it
happens, into something called "Eat The Change" which involves giving plastic packaging
a swerve and trying to hoover up local / organic produce.

It is something that is happening within the two weeks of Organic Food fortnight, which
we're halfway through, and I'm "keeping a blog" about it, as they say:
http://eatthechange2008.blogspot.com/

Naturally I have taken to this like the proverbial oil to water, coming from my perspective
of someone gradually overcoming their natural affinity for the microwaveable meals of this
world. But I am trying

For ages now I've been avoiding plastic bags and grumbling at overpackaging so it seems
sensible to make some observations about it. Well sensible to me anyway!

Hope everyone's enjoying the lovely autumnal feeling - I nearly got whacked on the head
by a horse chestnut today so Autumn's definitely here! It makes me want to buy pencils
and other stationery...

 

[xylaria]

Good luck with quest for the nearly empty wheelie bin.

I knock on my neighbours door on tuesday nights to ask them if they have extra rubbish as my bin is always half empty, and theirs is always overflowing.

Me and family foraged 5kg of apples on the weekend. Tescos have british apples on at £1.75 a bag, and south african ones for £1.50, why are they charging more the "local" fruit that in is full season. Britain has the widest varieties apples on the planet, and the wet weather has made them really juicy, yet supermarkets only sell cox's, bramley, and if you are luck one other type.

 

[RobertRogers]

Plastic is over running the planet. Heard tell in the ocean there is often thousands of pieces of plastic every 100-meters. The stuff just doesn't go away

 

[Andy2112]

Me and family foraged 5kg of apples on the weekend. Tescos have british apples on at £1.75 a bag, and south african ones for £1.50, why are they charging more the "local" fruit that in is full season. Britain has the widest varieties apples on the planet, and the wet weather has made them really juicy, yet supermarkets only sell cox's, bramley, and if you are luck one other type.[/QUOTE]


I saw this in Aldi and i had a rant, apples from Chile, why ? we grow the best apples in the world and many just 40 or 50 miles away from me !!! same as the asparagus, grown in Israel ? when we grow the best down in Evesham !!!! It just doesn't make sense. And why all this packaging ? it's just not worth it.

rant over.

 

[gregorach]

It's because those Chilean apples are a uniform, easily-handled product. The fact that they don't taste of anything much is irrelevant as far as the supermarkets are concerned. George Monboit was having a rant on the subject the other week - regardless of what you think of his politics or his other writing, I think he's on the money here: Strange Fruit.

Take the Egremont Russet, for example. It’s a small apple that looks like a conker wrapped in sandpaper. But it has one inestimable quality. It can be dropped from the top of Canary Wharf, smash a kerbstone and come to no harm. This means it can be trucked from an orchard at Land’s End to a packing plant in John O’Groats, via Sydney, Washington and Vladivostock, then back to a superstore in Penzance (this is the preferred route for most of the fruit sold in the UK) and remain fit for sale. The supermarkets must have had some trouble shifting it because of its strange appearance, so they promoted it as a connoisseur’s apple. Such is our suggestibility that almost everyone believes this, though a dispassionate tasting would show you that it’s as sweet and juicy as a box of Kleenex.

 

[scanker]

...and the British asparagus season is May-June. People want un-seasonal food. If there was no market for asparagus in September, it wouldn't be stocked. I can't think of a reason not to eat British apples in September though.

 

[David.from.Holland]

In Holland there are various organisations that supply a choice of assorted fruit and veg, organically grown, local if possible. They chuck a weeks supply in a (paper)bag and we collect it every Friday at our local shop. And often it's cheaper than buying it all at the supermarket as well.

 

[Tengu]

We have a veg box scheme in the village, its much cheaper than the supermarket.

look around, there may be one near you.