Some might argue we have too much on our plates with the multiple ongoing debates around food trends. But could it be that food campaigns are missing the scale of the problem?
Food is responsible for 30% of UK greenhouse gas emissions. The Brazilian savannah is being destroyed faster than the Amazon due to soy production – most of which is fed to the animals we eat. Over in Borneo, ancient tropical forests are being felled to plant palm trees to provide palm oil for our bread and low-fat spread. Daily reports of rising food prices – not to mention civil unrest arising from food insecurity – mean that what we eat matters more than ever before. Taking personal responsibility for our eating habits and understanding as much as possible about the food we eat is a matter of urgency.
Progress has been slowly made in the last few years: the fair trade and organic movements have helped many of us to understand how our shopping baskets can improve the conditions of producers around the world. The Fish Fight campaign spearheaded by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and others is achieving promising concessions, with EU commissioner Maria Damanaki proposing to ban discards. And living as I do in a wasteful country, I have some empathy and respect for freeganism.
The issue of sustainable diet may be complex, extending beyond the systems and structures of food production. But on a micro level, maintaining a diet in which processed food is kept to a minimum (it is resource-intensive to produce and unhealthy to boot) is a simple and effective solution. By knowing your ingredients, you can feed a family for far less than by buying the equivalent amount of ready-made meals. Farmed livestock can be consumed in moderation. Eating seasonally also makes a big difference – there's a myriad of reasons why we should all be eating more fruit and veg.
But despite the UK's "age of the foodie", British households appear to be losing cooking skills faster than ever. A modern mantra I hear a lot is, "I just don't have the time to cook". I'm not sure this is true. I think we just don't know what to cook. We have stopped understanding ingredients and now rely on far less variety throughout the year, leading to a dependence on imports and a lack of understanding of how to cook the very things that would help reduce the negative impact on our planet (and if you don't know what's in season there are many ways to find out). And what about all those other bits of the animal that are not prime cuts? Eat those too and we would slaughter fewer animals.
Livewell, a study by the WWF, aims to show how undertaking those simple steps needn't mean a miserly mung bean-filled existence: the charity's advice was to eat fish if you want to – but make sure it's certified by the marine stewardship council (MSC). The provenance for other ingredients, such as palm oil, should also be checked for sustainability. Hardly a herculean task. If you are a meat eater, enjoy it while remembering that purple sprouting broccoli coupled with garlic anchovies and a fried egg could be tastier – and more sustainable than a burger. Likewise, replacing half of the amount of meat you'd normally include in your curry or stew with vegetables makes for a more environmentally friendly meal.
Katherine Hibbert argued persuasively here for us to try to use every bit of what we buy to eat. Forty per cent of food ending up in landfill or the bin is unacceptable and completely avoidable: planning ahead with what is in your fridge would lead to far less impulse buying. We have forgotten that we can change something bigger than our waistlines with the food choices we make: treat the environment well and eat with care, and the body will follow. After all, can you really call yourself an adult if you can't prepare yourself a meal?
Cutting carbon emissions and adjusting our diets is no mean feat; it is a difficult challenge that will take time and concerted effort. Understanding ingredients will not just help your meals taste better, it's the best way to reduce the environmental impact of our food. The natural world is fine without us; the same cannot be said the other way around.
