Crystal Palace Transition Town
Contact  us:
  • Home
  • What We Do
    • clt
    • Library Of People
    • SE19 LATES
    • Park Nights !
    • Market of Ideas
    • Community Gardens
    • Food Market
    • More Food and Growing
    • Local and Fair
    • Library Of Things
    • Transport
    • Energy Group
    • The Big Switch
    • Waste >
      • Palace Pick-up
    • Children >
      • Bugs Club
      • Transition Kids
      • Transition Babies
      • Kids at the Market
  • About us
    • Who we are
    • Stuff we've done >
      • "The Power of Just Doing Stuff"
      • Skill Share Day
      • Green Screen
      • Eco-friendly Xmas stall
    • Our constitution
    • Annual Round-ups
    • Our policies >
      • Equal Opportunities
      • Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults
      • Safeguarding Children
      • Health and Safety
      • Privacy And Data Policy
  • Get involved
    • Contact us
    • Volunteer
    • Green Drinks
    • Calendar
  • Transition
    • What is Transition?
    • Peak oil
    • Climate change
    • How to go green
  • Gallery
  • Blog
  • Mailing list

Carbon Conversation 4: Food and water

5/11/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
By Karen Jones

It’s a dark, damp November night, far too warm for the time of year, as we all meet upstairs at Mediterranea to consider the effects our eating habits have on our carbon footprints. It soon becomes apparent that these are complicated and highly personal, with roots embedded deeply in our upbringings, culture, health concerns and emotions...

We start by sharing food stories and analysing food choices and begin to challenge perceptions: Is organic food really too expensive? (Usually no) Is organic food less carbon efficient to produce? (Not sure.)  Is everyone cooking individually more carbon costly than mass processed meals?  (Complicated!)  Is provenance important? (Yes) Is beef worse than chicken? (Yes) We did all agree that food tasted better with other people and was bonding, even when taken in silence with nuns, and that cooking for a family can be extremely tiresome.

Our next exercise is to physically place ourselves on a spectrum of worry around certain food issues: the obesity crisis - chemicals in our processed foods - animal welfare - lack of subsidies for small farmers - GMO foods - remnants of pesticides in food - food security... Some of us found ourselves huddled at the 'very worried' wall for each question, while others moved around, but no-one went into the ‘not very worried’ half of the room at all! I recommended the book “Swallow This” by Joanne Blythman, the result of the author going undercover in the shady world of processed food.

Next we play a game ranking the carbon costs involved in PRODUCTION, PROCESSING, PACKAGING and TRANSPORT for a variety of products. Breaking it down like this enables us to see how carbon gets generated at each stage and how confusing it all is. As a team we’re pretty good, getting the top five right in every category. The British beef ready meal comes out top in production and processing and pretty high in packaging, begging the question as to how it’s so cheap. Surprising results include the low production carbon cost of Californian strawberries, the high packaging carbon cost of aluminium cans, and the low packaging carbon cost of plastic!  Thai chicken nuggets are the overall worst offender - no surprise there.

Food diaries are the next item on the agenda.  Only one of us has filled it in but it’s illuminating nonetheless, highlighting how much processed food creeps in over a week even for a person who grows her own and cooks from scratch, and how one home cooked meal can easily come from many different countries.

Our takeaways from the session include looking at labels more carefully, reassessing our shopping habits, monitoring our processed food intake and being more aware of provenance.  Our homework is to draw a time line and consider when in our lives our eating habits have changed and why - for example, when we went to Uni or after having children - to help us see that change is possible.

My takeaway is to become an even more mindful eater.  What food we eat is a choice we make up to three times a day, every single day, and I want to make informed ones.

“To be interested in food but not in food production is clearly absurd.”  Wendell Berry
“Eating is an agricultural act.”  Wendell Berry

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Authors

    All our authors are Transition Town members who are passionate about green issues and getting things done!

    Archives

    October 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    May 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    July 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014

    Categories

    All
    Alys Penfold
    Anna Sayburn
    Annual Celebrations
    Carbon Conversations
    Christmas
    Circular Economy
    Climate Change
    Crystal Palace Food Market
    Crystal Palace Library Of Things
    Crystal Palace Park
    Cycling
    Edible Garden
    Emily Jewell
    Emma Shaw
    Energy Efficiency
    Green Drinks
    Growing
    Joe Duggan
    Kalina Palka
    LJ Stacey
    Local Shopping
    Local Trade
    Lou Yates
    Margaret Adjaye
    Mehul Damani
    Our Story
    Palace Pint
    Palace Trees
    Patchwork Farm
    Press
    Rachel Chance
    Rebecca Trevalyan
    Sophia Wyatt
    St John's Garden
    The Paxton Centre
    Tom Chance
    Transport
    Upper Norwood Library Hub

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.