Our latest food challenge encouraged participants to Eat Well on a Budget of no more than £23 per week. Here are Maia and Lindsey’s reflections on their experiences, accompanied by some glorious photos by Lindsey.
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Maia
I have always been conscious not to over-consume and not to purchase imported products while shopping. The Eating Well on a Budget challenge made me think even more about the food I consume. Where is it coming from, where is it packaged and how far it often travels to get into our plates.
During the challenge, I had to give up vegetables such as peppers from The Netherlands, tomatoes and oranges from Spain. I easily replaced them with local vegetables and fruits found in local supermarkets and farmers shops, notably local spring onions, tomatoes, spinach, beetroot and lettuce. I also found some local cheese produced in Lincolnshire.
Looking at the source of products before any purchase is an interesting experience and your selection of products gets refined through each visit to the supermarket.
We won’t always get to eat at the best restaurants while having a sustainable food diet, but this could be easily offset by home-made apple crumbles, soups, fresh Mediterranean style salads or even vegetable julienne with organic oven-baked marinated poultry!
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Lindsey
Taking part in the Eating Well on a Budget challenge was a valuable experience for me. It made me think even more about what can be achieved by trying to buy locally and I found it very satisfying. It also confirmed that doing so needn’t cost an arm and a leg, although for this particular week I over-spent on the suggested target budget of ~£23/week.
I ate toast every day for breakfast, which helped me to keep things local (wheat flour from Foster’s Mill) and cheap, with a large loaf costing no more than £1 to make. Lunches consisted of bread or toast with local salad vegetables and either local eggs or homemade hummus. One of the most enjoyable aspects of this challenge was that I took a little longer to prepare dinner on a couple of evenings.
My favourite meal was a variation of a dosa; a gram-flour pancake stuffed with chard and potato curry. For this I used veg from my COFCO box – some of which were seasonal but not local, but it was fun to make and really tasty! The other memorable dinner was dahl with chapatis using local flour; I’d never made chapatis before but now I know it’s quick, easy and also therapeutic.
On reflection, I could manage to make the majority of the food I eat local with more time to shop around and plan meals. For the challenge week, rather than eating pasta or other grains I could have eaten potatoes. Also, I could have made a broad-bean/pea dip or finally cooked the British fava beans (Hodmedod’s) I have to make hummus, but for convenience I opted for tinned chickpeas.
I bought less fruit than usual by sticking to local strawberries. As they seem to be on offer everywhere I ended up with 3 punnets (I couldn’t resist them) over the week which came to £6. Fruit and vegetables form the main part of my normal diet and so I didn’t want to cut back too much while on this challenge even though I knew this would mean I’d struggle to stick within the budget.
As expected, one habit of mine this challenge highlighted is eating too much; I’m more likely to cook half a bunch of asparagus for dinner rather than a couple of spears and I would eat half a punnet of strawberries each day as part of breakfast. This may seem a bit extravagant but I very rarely buy meat, fish or dairy products so I’m happy to spend more money on fruit and veg. Although not a big meat-eater I did some research while doing the challenge and discovered that several butchers in Cambridge source their products locally. Alongside the Sunday market’s offerings of Red Poll beef and poultry/game from Cottenham this means that good quality local meat is widely available. After doing the challenge my mental database of local shops and producers has certainly grown. The same applies for local beer, although I enjoyed just the one local brew with the budget in mind!
Breakfasts:
Toast (homemade sourdough using local spelt/wheat flour)
Local strawberries
English honey and nut butter or boiled local eggs
Lunches:
Sandwiches made from homemade bread (local flour) and: homemade hummus and local salad veggies , local tomatoes and basil, or local eggs and salad.
Dinners:
Pasta with local veg (asparagus, mushrooms, onion and parsley)
Spiced red lentil dahl with local spinach, tomatoes and onions, chapatis made with local flour.
Couscous salad with local asparagus, eggs, radishes, broad beans, spring onions and herbs
Noodle and local veg stir-fry (chard, mushrooms, onions, carrot) and Asian condiments
Pasta with tomato-veg sauce (local mushrooms, rosemary, onion, tomatoes), green salad with local lettuce dressed with local rapeseed oil and Aspall’s cider vinegar. Local beer.
(Favourite meal) Aubergine curry, chard-aloo stuffed into gram-flour pancakes, local cucumber and spring onion ‘chutney’.
Treats:
Cookies: local spelt flour, eggs, oats/rye flakes.
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August 7, 2013