How To Do It

We are often asked how best to go about eating locally. Our advice at its simplest is to take these three steps:

1. Join the project and engage with others through the website

2. Subscribe to a weekly veg box scheme (Bellfield & Pillars are both good)

3. Eat what’s in your veg box

Another good tip on getting started is to plan a meal that is locally sourced then build it up from there, or do it for a week and see how you get on.

The most often heard obstacles to taking part are the following four: the convenience of the supermarkets, the costs involved, the time involved, and the idea that you just couldn’t miss out on certain foods.

Convenience
Many of the producers we list on the website will deliver to your door on a weekly basis.

Cost
This depends on what you eat. But eating a low-meat diet and eating seasonally from your veg box can be a real money saver, rather than an expense.

Food Loves
So you don’t want to give up coffee, tea, bananas or chocolate? So don’t. This isn’t about denial. We suggest you identify the foods that you can’t do without (maybe chocolate or coffee or tea). Then just get on with eating locally and enjoying these foods that we couldn’t possibly grow here anyway.

Time
It’s true that preparing food from scratch takes longer than opening a packet or a tin. The benefits of eating less processed foods are clear in less embedded sugar and salt, but the reality is sometimes we are just busy, tired or in need of a quick food fix. There are simple solutions like batch-cooking soups to heat up in 5 minutes, or cooking up omellettes or other supper meals that take only a few minutes. There’s also the option of just enjoying the process of cooking and relaxing into new habits of seeing cooking as a joy rather than a chore.

Many of the local suppliers will deliver to your door so the idea that there is alot of time spent sourcing food is often mistaken.

Over the coming year we’ll post here more specific ideas on how to source locally given different lifestyles, incomes and food interests. First up is some advice on eating locally as a vegetarian or vegan.

Download or print out these seasonal guides to eating vegetarian and local:

Download or print out these seasonal guides to eating vegan and local: