A Spoonful of Sugar. Liz Fraser

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Buying local means buying food at its prime. It hasn’t sat around on shelves or on lorries for days losing nutrients and taste, so it’s as good as you can get it.

      

Food from local farms has usually undergone minimal processing, so it’s healthier and looks, smells and tastes real.

      

Shopping locally also retains our communities and distinctiveness, creating vibrant town centres where people can socialise as well as shop, and is vital for the local economy.

      “Local food economies are of the utmost importance to the sustainability of rural communities. They bring great benefits to the countryside both in terms of safeguarding rural jobs, sustaining local retailers, providing outlets for local produce and conserving the British countryside. If we are to ensure the survival of our rural communities and regional food heritage, we must build positive relationships between our local food networks and the global food chain. This would be hugely beneficial for farming, for rural businesses, local jobs and for the conservation of the countryside as a whole.”

      Jimmy Doherty, TV’s Jimmy’s Farm

      The recent and welcome growing trend to try and purchase fresh produce locally is not just down to our desperate fat-busting requirements, but for three other main reasons:

      Carbon footprint. The way we buy much of our food today (flying raspberries halfway across the world when we could just wait and have British raspberries in August when they’re good and ready) is mind-blowingly stupid, selfish and environmentally damaging. I’ve done it and you probably have too, but it’s now really time we stopped, or at least cut down drastically. The trend for all things Green means many of us are trying not to buy anything that has travelled more than a few miles, and this is nothing but a damned good move!

      The best things come to those who wait. Many consumers have finally realised that what they thought they wanted (everything being available all the time) is actually very crap and unfulfilling for one simple reason: nothing has any sense of ‘specialness’ or excitement any more, and there is consequently now a yearning to get back to a time when you had to wait for something, and then enjoy it all the more. When winter meant apples and oranges, summer meant strawberries and asparagus, lamb came in the spring, berries in the autumn and all the seasons were different and special.

      Fashion. Love it or hate it, what’s fashionable does dictate how many of us live, and shopping locally is the thing to be doing these days, once again. This is one trend we should ALL be following if we are to start feeding our kids something real for a change.

       Granny’s Pearl of Wisdom

      Growing some of your own fruit and vegetables is an easy way to feed your family well. We all did it out of necessity during the war, and you don’t need a huge garden. Just a few pots for tomatoes, or a small bed for potatoes or runner beans. It’s very cheap and it also teaches kids where some of their food comes from.

The bad news

      The slightly less good news is that, while this local shopping and home growing is all very admirable, healthy and fun, we have to keep it real: shopping once a week in a big supermarket is just the easiest way for many people. End of story. When I stopped work to look after my kids at home I could shop locally every day and I even managed to tend the crappy vegetable patch we had – it was something for us to do for goodness’ sake! But now that my kids are all at school and I’m at work almost full time, shopping isn’t an option most days of the week. And for those who work more than me it’s nigh on impossible at any time other than the weekend. Quite apart from anything else, the big shops are actually open at a time people can get to them – local ones often shut at 5 p.m. or even earlier.

      So what’s to do?

Strike a balance

      Shop in supermarkets when you have to, and certainly for the big basics like washing powder, tins and so on, and for the Mothers Emergency Kit of freezer favourites like fish fingers – honestly, who is really going to be bothered to make those every time? – but while you’re there try as far as possible to choose healthier, more natural options with less processing. The occasional big supermarket shops aside, try to make as many trips to local shops in between, for fresh seasonal produce like vegetables, as you possibly can. Saturday mornings are a possibility for many, and Sunday markets are open on … um, well, on Sundays, so that’s another day you can probably manage.

      Until food manufacturers promise, promise, promise to stop filling our daily bread with sugar, saturated fats, and salt it’s going be very tricky to reverse the obesity trend and get the nation’s children back into their skinny jeans again. But Granny has another suggestion that we can all try out, and this time it means coming out of the shops, and back into the kitchen …

Cooking from scratch

      Just as I am wondering whether anything is safe to eat any more I am shown a newspaper cutting Granny has put aside to illustrate her next point.

      ‘Just look at this,’ she exclaims, waving the paper dangerously near my almost empty bowl. ‘Children at a school in Fife have been banned from bringing in home-made cakes to the School Fayre, in case of any allergic reactions. They’re being told to bring shop-bought ones instead. But what’s in those?’

      I make a face that I fear sums up the words ‘Ummm …’ and ‘I don’t know’ perfectly. Granny clearly has no difficulty reading the look in my eyes.

      ‘Well, that’s just it: they don’t know either. They’ve no idea!’

       Granny’s Pearl of Wisdom

      When you cook food at home, you know what’s in it because you do it yourself. Flour, eggs, salt and sugar – and that’s IT! No hidden extras. If you buy everything from the shops your children consume a terrific amount of unnecessary things that are bad for them, without realising it.

      Granny has finished her lunch now, but not her attack on the way we eat these days.

      ‘There’s nothing home made any more, like soup, or bread or a roast dinner, and many people don’t even know how to make them, and you know why?’

      ‘Because we’re all lazy and watch too much telly?’ Mmmmm, telly …

      ‘Well, there’s a bit of that, certainly, but it’s mainly because parents are both out at work all day, and haven’t the time or energy to cook when they get home. So they open the freezer and heat up any old shop-bought junk they find in it. Tins, packets, jars – you name it. I was at home looking after the СКАЧАТЬ