Green Living

Green Living Future Of Our Food

The Future...

We live in a world where you can buy anything you need by just a click of a button or a walk into a supermarket, but what if we did not have this luxury or were considering different options?

This is a ‘Green Living’ guide to the future of our food and what alternative sources and ways we can get our food sustainably.

This is to benefit not only ourselves but the environment as well and there are a variety of ways from foraging for mushrooms to eating insects.

This guide includes a range of foraging stories that show you how some people around Cornwall source their food mostly for their own businesses.

It also includes information and debates on supermarkets rejecting misshapen veg, the benefits of shopping organically and independently, also the question of could we eat bugs?

Contents...

The Eden Project

Coastal Forage

Discover a wide range of wild treats from mushrooms to watercress at The Eden Project in Cornwall with Emma Gunn...

Follow Ange Douglas along the Cornish coastline and find amazing flowers and fruit to make ice cream and liquors...

Wonky Vegetables Organic & Local

Ever wondered why all the supermarket veg is so ‘perfect’ and what do they do with the fruit and vegetables that just don’t make the cut?

Is it better to shop in independant places with organic produce or easier just to stick with the comforts of a supermarket?

Survivalists

Students from Falmotuh University learn how to survive on a fire and forage day at the allotments

Bug Bites

Many countries around the world enjoy crickets for a snack or breakfast but could the Western world adapt to these changes if needed?

Forafiging

at

the

Eden Project

Ever wanted to know what you can eat in your own garden? There is many ingredients you can find for tasty meals. Emma Gunn can show you how. She works for the Eden project as a florist and garden designer among other tasks like caring for the grounds and exhibits.

In her spare time however she enjoys nothing more than digging through nature discovering all sorts of tasty ingredients that can be used in her home cooking. Emma also loves to draw what she finds and thinks it is important to study forms of the food as well. Through this using her skills as an artist and a forager she created her own self published book called ‘Never Mind The Burdocks’, Emma has made a book for each season focusing on a different type of food for each one.

The current book Emma’s working on is the Winter and Autumn editions with tips on how to forage for rose hips,burdock, watercress, crab apples and many different types of fungi which is especially important as you have to be careful not to pick anything you cannot identify otherwise you can be easily posioned.

The best way to identify fungi is to look at the stalk, colour, the size of gills and the shape of the cap. If you are unsure do not eat them.

This common puffball Lycoperdon Emma is holding (on the right) is safe to eat but as she squeezes one of them a stream of liquid pours out meaning they have got too damp and therefore inedible.

So there are many things to look out for when foraging.

“Nothing beats finding some wild tasty treats and making a feast!”

Here are some of the foraging treats that will be around in Autumn and Winter: Burdock; Great to roast up in the oven and this time of year has a lot of sweet starch so very healthy.

Elderflowers; The flowers and berries are still around for a few weeks and can be used to cordials, fritters and champagne but make sure you take off the corymbs to avoid stomach upset Watercress; A winter plant that provides vitamins such as A, C and K. Gather it from a clean source as this plant grows in water where liver fluke can be present.

Picking the tips and cooking the plant eliminates the risk. Make watercress soup with crusty bread, it’s delicious!

Fungi; There’s an abumdance of different types of mushroom out there, common puffball, shaggy ink-caps and beautiful amythest decievers. All of these are edible but make sure you identify correctly before making into omlettes.

Emma has learnt a lot about foraging from just researching, reading and going out there and looking around her natual surroundings.

She also takes groups of people around the Eden Project and across Cornwall so that they can learn how to look for edible snacks and ingredients. She then often takes them to a kitchen afterwards and shows them how to cook their findings.

Facebook: nevermindtheburdocks Twitter: nmtheburdocks

Coastal Forage

There is nothing better than taking a stroll along the coast of Cornwall. Many birds and wildlife scurry amongst the trees eating nuts and berries. Whilst on this walk you can also enjoy the fruits of the earth and make some incredible dishes out of them as well.

Angela Douglas lives in Falmouth, Cornwall and has been foraging around the coast and in forests for a hobby and for her job. She works at Hedgerow Deli which speciliazes in homemade frozen yoghurts, liquers and cordials all made mostly from ingredients found outside.

This time she was foraging for rose hips which you can make jams, liquers, wine and compots out of.

As children you will remember them as the itching powder berries but as long as you cook them correctly by removing the hairs on the inside of the berry. You have to be careful as well as there are many poisonous red berries that look similar around the Winter months.

Another ingredient Anglea looked for along the coastal path was Gorse flowers. They have a sweet and coconut taste and smell which you can use for cordials, cakes and the food she was going to make was ice cream. You do have to collect a lot of flowers and then soak and infuse them into a liquid which you add to your homemade ice cream.

Angela makes inventive meals out of everything she finds and the best part about it all is it is fresh and cheap!

SURVIVALISTS

How would you survive if you were in the jungle or had no home or shops? It would be pretty unbearable.

A group of students from Falmouth Univeristy, Cornwallfound out many survival skills as they put away their phones and got back in touch with nature.

Led by a local forager and willow weaver Jane the keen enthusiasts learnt how to forage for an abundance of treats like sloe berries, penny worts, nettles and chesnuts.

After they had collected all the natual and free ingredients they had to prepare all of it and make a fire. The students gathered fire wood and kept it dry with tarpuline. Due to health and safety they had to use a Chimnerar so it was an enclosed fire but it would still

To start the fire they had to firstly sort the wood into piles of length and width then place it into the Chimnera so that it forms a teepee shape.

This is so you can place paper or dry straw into the middle as kindling.

When the fire was eventuallly lit as it was hard work with nothing but flammable materials and luck they started to chop up all of the food. They decided to make nettle and potato soup along with jacket potatos, roasted chesnuts and squash.

It was a glorious feast all found in the woodland forest and in your own back gardens So now we know it is possible to live on foraged foods.

Wonky Veg

When you walk down the fruit and vegetable section of your local supermarket you pick up perfectly round potatoes and straight carrots not an abnormal one in sight. This is due to regluations that the food has to go through when cropped and any wonky carrots or curved potatos found get thrown away or sometimes made into microwavable meals.

The supermarkets throw away 300,000 or more tonnes of food waste and a chunk of that are misshapen vegetables that just did not make the cut for the cosmetic fruit and vegetable standards. There are many campaigns to introduce the food into the supermarkets and a few in Europe and recently as well in the UK have begun to sell their own with a campaign to promote the unusal veg.

Most of the customers that shop at these places do not mind mishapen vegetables.They are also thinking of selling them at reduced prices which is a bonus. This will also help the farmers out a great deal with their waste because supermarkets reject so much that they have wasted a great deal of space and time on growing vegetables that just are not good enough.

So what is so wrong with a piece of fruit or vegetable that is not exactly attractive. It is still an edible source of food so why do supermarkets feel the need to throw away so much waste. At least we have made a start for the future of the food waste as many regluations will change due to them being sold in some places. More will follow and then wonky veg will be a ‘normal’ thing!

Shop Organic Shop Local

When it’s that time of the week to go shopping we all trapse to Tesco or Asda as it is the most easiest thing, and why not all you want is under one roof. It may be the most convinient but is it the best option?

There are other ways to shop in a healthier and more sustainable way. The first thing you can do is to use your local and independant shops such as the bakery, grocers and butchers. The food from there is not only sometimes cheaper but it is healthier for you and you would be supporting the businesses in your area which keeps the economy there as well instead of giving it all to big companies.

Another reason to shop locally is the food you get is mostly fair trade and organic which is not only healthier for you because they do not add any chemicals which are toxic. It is also better for the environment as less air miles and you would be keeping the local businesses a float as well.

It may be easier if you live in Cornwall or Devon to do this but there are a variety of local independant businesses now and why shouldn’t we support them?

BUG

BITES

Bugs, are they just a creepy crawly or a source of nutritious food?

Many countries around the world especially in Asia began eating insects years before we have even discovered there abilities. They have a great source of protein averaging on 350g per kg which is the same as beef.

As an experiment I baked cookies made using cricket flour and added cricket chips for crunch! I then sold them at a cake sale during lunch time at my University to see the reactions and what people thought of them and the idea that we could eat insects. Most tried some and thought it tasted nutty and strange but bearable and others just bought them as tricks for their friends.

Most people I asked thought that they could only eat bugs if they had to as they were so used to meat and normal food. I explained to them that if there was no meat then that would be our main source of protein and would need to for survival.

To farm crickets takes less crop space, less water and you can get 60% more out of it than farming meat. It could create a break through for poverished countries and people and many companies and restraurants are trying to make them seem more appealing to us as food. I don’t think anyone would eat them if they still had legs and wings!

Rainbow Carrots

Same Taste, Different vegetable

Photography by Sophie Sear With support from, The Green Living Project, Emma Gunn, Angela Douglas & Jane Burrows.