Wood for the Trees

A few years ago I watched a programme called Hugh's War on Waste. It highlighted the crazy amount of food that gets wasted each year and has really made me think. The stats day that; UK households threw away 7.3 million tonnes of wasted food in 2015.  And before it even gets to our houses farmers are wasting enough fruit and veg to feed 2-4 million people , that's enough to feed  6 UK cities their 5 a day for a year. If you look at those stats alongside the Trussel Trust's mid-year report on foodbank use that " 586,907 three day emergency food supplies [were] given to people in crisis in first half of this year, a 13% increase on the same period last year – 208,956 to children" We are wasting a staggering amount of food, yet we have the situation that lots of people cannot afford to feed themselves or their families. It really is quite sickening. My children are quite fussy eaters (well mainly the older one, the younger one just copies her). People used to as...

I've been vegetarian for more than 20 years now but quite recently I've been trying to eat more of a plant based diet. When I became vegetarian it was because I didn't really like meat anyway and I had reached the age where I discovered I was allowed to make choices about my own lifestyle. Then as I got older and more aware of what meat was, I found it even more yucky. Of course, I inevitably got the 'dont you miss bacon?' questions (no as bacon basically tastes of salt and I still eat salt) and the 'do you eat fish? My friend is a vegetarian and they eat fish' (well they're not vegetarian then are they? 🙄) But generally people accepted my choices. As the years went by eating out became easier as restaurants accepted vegetarianism as mainstream and I no longer had to construct a meal from the side dishes. I bumbled along quite happily with my cheese dishes and egg dishes. Then I discovered I was an idiot. The problem with culturally accepted norms...