[Kingy]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned so far is the carbon footprint of the food we eat. To minimise this, an easily achievable step would be to buy British and also to buy fruit and veg in season. I used to buy asparagus quite regularly that had been flown in from Peru (which was nice and cheap) but now don't bother, its not justifiable in my view. Sorry Peruvian farmers!

[SA Chris]

You'll need to find a different way to make your wee smell now.

Agree on the above though, best before / use by dates need to be abolished, use your nose and eyes.

And flying fruit and veg from across the world, only to bin it because you left it in the fruitbowl for 2 weeks / it's gone a slightly different colour.

[Paul B]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned so far is the carbon footprint of the food we eat. To minimise this, an easily achievable step would be to buy British and also to buy fruit and veg in season. I used to buy asparagus quite regularly that had been flown in from Peru (which was nice and cheap) but now don't bother, its not justifiable in my view. Sorry Peruvian farmers!

This very much reminded me of this tweet:
https://twitter.com/frankieboyle/status/583261721994924033?s=20

You had a multi-year transatlantic redpoint project!

I got called small minded (diddums I know) on Twitter for pointing out something similar regarding Lewis Hamilton (veganism and V8s); to be clear, it's not that I think that efforts such as buying local aren't worth doing but my understanding was that XR are trying to raise awareness of drastic changes needed which will inevitably be the less comfortable choices.

Its can espouse the benefits of not having kids for instance but that (currently at least) is an easy choice. It'll be less easy for me to willingly stop visiting far flung climbing destinations and instead risk the Scottish weather.

[petejh]

Brilliant.

We should have carbon karma: standard wad points for sending hard oversees proj, carbon punter points for the family of polar bears doing a ‘titanic final scene’ as they slip exhausted beneath the warm sea, because of your obsession. Please overlords make it happen.

[abarro81]

This very much reminded me of this tweet:
https://twitter.com/frankieboyle/status/583261721994924033?s=20

 

With respect to buying local, I suspect that what you buy locally (in terms of how it's farmed and whether it's in season) is likely to be as important as how local it is, especially when comparing local vs grown in other European countries. E.g. based on 1 min on google: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13593-013-0171-8

imported tomatoes from Spain and Italy have two times lower greenhouse gas emissions than those produced in Austria in capital-intensive heated systems. On the contrary, tomatoes from Spain and Italy were found to have 3.7 to 4.7 times higher greenhouse gas emissions in comparison to less-intensive organic production systems in Austria.

My growing view is that we're all way too cuntish to take individual actions to avoid fucking the planet up - most of us have our vices and wont give them up, whether it's long-haul climbing, driving loads, buying loads of shit from far away, having the heating on too much etc. We just do what's convenient and ignore the rest, and probably 9/10 of us are the same.

The only way we're going to stop f*cking everything up is if it's taken out of our hands - so we can use electric planes, cars and ground-source heat pumps run off a clean grid... but by the time we get there we'll probably have screwed everything up already.

[teestub]

I got called small minded (diddums I know) on Twitter for pointing out something similar regarding Lewis Hamilton (veganism and V8s)

I guess this depends on whether Hamilton is vegan for environmental reasons or because he doesn’t like killing fluffy animals!

[gme]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned so far is the carbon footprint of the food we eat. To minimise this, an easily achievable step would be to buy British and also to buy fruit and veg in season. I used to buy asparagus quite regularly that had been flown in from Peru (which was nice and cheap) but now don't bother, its not justifiable in my view. Sorry Peruvian farmers!

From the little i have read this is a far more complex thing than 1st meets the eye, as suggested in alexs post. I know a few who have gone down the veggie/non meat eating route for this reason and i am not convinced its as easy as that, nor do i intend to start eating rabbit food all my life. Is eating local grass fed beef worse than imported avocado or asparagus? I believe cheese has a bigger carbon footprint than chicken and pork so should we stop eating that first?

I cant help but feel that the "facts" are often heavily influenced by the" in it for the money" meat producers on one side, and the animal rights campaigners on the other, and i feel the later group really is hijacking this to help push their cause.

I have a lot of good friends who are farmers and they feel pretty threatened by the dont eat meat message but also they dont identify at all with the intensive farming that you see used to justify it. I think how we produce and consume food is more important than what we eat.

[i.munro]

My growing view is that we're all way too cuntish to take individual actions to avoid fucking the planet up - most of us have our vices and wont give them up, whether it's long-haul climbing, driving loads, buying loads of shit from far away, having the heating on too much etc. We just do what's convenient and ignore the rest, and probably 9/10 of us are the same.

That's why this has to come from Govt.& fast! If you look at the details of flying or even driving it's a small minority doing the great bulk of the damage and while that's the case - even if the majority become self-sacrificing  things can't get much better.

[andy popp]

I think how we produce and consume food is more important than what we eat.

This needn't be an either/or though: our choices around what to consumer (and not consume) are often precisely about the circumstances of its production.

[SA Chris]

I got called small minded (diddums I know) on Twitter for pointing out something similar regarding Lewis Hamilton (veganism and V8s)

I guess this depends on whether Hamilton is vegan for environmental reasons or because he doesn’t like killing fluffy animals!

Or maybe he sees it as being a healthy diet, which doesn't necessarily include either of the above.

[Paul B]

It was an environmental standpoint:

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/lewis-hamilton-says-going-vegan-only-way-to-save-the-planet_uk_5da6db60e4b062bdcb1b19a9

[teestub]

Thanks Paul, didn’t realise it was recent, ‘yeah chow down on your carrots there Lew’ 

[tomtom]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned so far is the carbon footprint of the food we eat. To minimise this, an easily achievable step would be to buy British and also to buy fruit and veg in season. I used to buy asparagus quite regularly that had been flown in from Peru (which was nice and cheap) but now don't bother, its not justifiable in my view. Sorry Peruvian farmers!

From the little i have read this is a far more complex thing than 1st meets the eye, as suggested in alexs post. I know a few who have gone down the veggie/non meat eating route for this reason and i am not convinced its as easy as that, nor do i intend to start eating rabbit food all my life. Is eating local grass fed beef worse than imported avocado or asparagus? I believe cheese has a bigger carbon footprint than chicken and pork so should we stop eating that first?

I cant help but feel that the "facts" are often heavily influenced by the" in it for the money" meat producers on one side, and the animal rights campaigners on the other, and i feel the later group really is hijacking this to help push their cause.

I have a lot of good friends who are farmers and they feel pretty threatened by the dont eat meat message but also they dont identify at all with the intensive farming that you see used to justify it. I think how we produce and consume food is more important than what we eat.

Some good points here Gav.

Some general points (not completely sure they are all correct but make sense to me - at the moment):

RE: Dairy/Beef/lamb - A lot of the grazing land in the UK isnt good enough for crops - so aside leaving it to become woodland (not in itself a daft alternative) then stopping diary/meat production here is not a great carbon plus. However, burning large parts of the amazon basin to make new grazing land - and intensive pastoral agriculture as seen in NZ for example isnt so flash. (though I'm also ignoring methane emissions arguements here too..)

The C footprint of some veg that comes a long way (Bannanas for example) isnt so bad as they can come via sea in bulk.

Its easy for the veg/vegan diet to become a polarising either/or issue (you're either veg/veg or not) - when for many people (like me) it is about eating less meat and more veg... For health, planet, taste and other reasons..  If you persuade most carnivores to have 25% less meat and dairy a week then that will make a bigger difference than getting a smaller number to abstain.

Wasnt farming fish seen as a realtively low C way of generating protein?

[SA Chris]

so aside leaving it to become woodland (not in itself a daft alternative)

Wasnt farming fish seen as a realtively low C way of generating protein?

living on squirrels, rabbits, badgers and mushroom!

Some aquaculture isn't terrible for the environment, but fish farming is potentially more harmful to the environment than CO2, just a different type of harm.

[Will Hunt]

On the home-grown veg thing, I think I've mentioned somewhere before a thing that I heard on the radio at some point. Basically, if your low food miles grub has been grown in a heated greenhouse you are immediately in a worse position than if it had been brought in on a boat from somewhere that it was grown using the heat of the sun.

The obvious answer to that is to eat stuff that is in season, which is fine in theory but has some associated problems, not least that we're all so used to being able to source any veg we want at any time of year that cooking seasonally can feel like a huge effort - the kind of effort that seems like quite a hurdle to a busy working family.

[SA Chris]

On a fruit POV it would mean eating locally grown deciduous fruit (mostly apples plums and pears) late summer, cultivated berries and little else.

[tomtom]

On a fruit POV it would mean eating locally grown deciduous fruit (mostly apples plums and pears) late summer, cultivated berries and little else.

Apples can last for months if you store them properly (wrap them in paper - don't let them touch and keep them somewhere cool and mouse proof)

[teestub]

On a fruit POV it would mean eating locally grown deciduous fruit (mostly apples plums and pears) late summer, cultivated berries and little else.

Are we still allowed to freeze things?

[gme]

On a fruit POV it would mean eating locally grown deciduous fruit (mostly apples plums and pears) late summer, cultivated berries and little else.

Are we still allowed to freeze things?

Only if you want to burn in hell.

[SA Chris]

On a fruit POV it would mean eating locally grown deciduous fruit (mostly apples plums and pears) late summer, cultivated berries and little else.

Are we still allowed to freeze things?

No, freezers consume too much electricity, preserving in jars is the only way I'm afraid.

Point is, no citrus, no bananas, no grapes (apart from those grown in small corner of Surrey and Kent)

[andy popp]

The obvious answer to that is to eat stuff that is in season, which is fine in theory but has some associated problems, not least that we're all so used to being able to source any veg we want at any time of year that cooking seasonally can feel like a huge effort - the kind of effort that seems like quite a hurdle to a busy working family.

There's no reason cooking with seasonal produce should be any more actual work (prep etc.) than with non-seasonal, but it requires a different mindset where you first buy what's available and then decide what to make with it. I guess that could feel like a restriction.

[andy popp]

preserving in jars is the only way I'm afraid.

Preserving is great. We bought a bushel of tomatoes from a local Mennonite (and thus non-intensive) farm for $10 and had fantastic canned tomatoes for almost a year.

[SA Chris]

[Will Hunt]

The obvious answer to that is to eat stuff that is in season, which is fine in theory but has some associated problems, not least that we're all so used to being able to source any veg we want at any time of year that cooking seasonally can feel like a huge effort - the kind of effort that seems like quite a hurdle to a busy working family.

There's no reason cooking with seasonal produce should be any more actual work (prep etc.) than with non-seasonal, but it requires a different mindset where you first buy what's available and then decide what to make with it. I guess that could feel like a restriction.

I know it sounds lazy (and perhaps it is, but I'd argue it was more to do with having many other things competing for my time) and is a terribly uncool thing to admit to on such a middle class forum, but I don't currently have the culinary creativity required to do as you describe, and the amount of work I think it would take to get to that point is quite daunting.

[tomtom]

The obvious answer to that is to eat stuff that is in season, which is fine in theory but has some associated problems, not least that we're all so used to being able to source any veg we want at any time of year that cooking seasonally can feel like a huge effort - the kind of effort that seems like quite a hurdle to a busy working family.

There's no reason cooking with seasonal produce should be any more actual work (prep etc.) than with non-seasonal, but it requires a different mindset where you first buy what's available and then decide what to make with it. I guess that could feel like a restriction.

I know it sounds lazy (and perhaps it is, but I'd argue it was more to do with having many other things competing for my time) and is a terribly uncool thing to admit to on such a middle class forum, but I don't currently have the culinary creativity required to do as you describe, and the amount of work I think it would take to get to that point is quite daunting.

Ping. Your dinners ready now Will. 😃