3. Eat the seasons

With everything we want available in the supermarkets whenever we want it, it's really easy to lose touch with what's in season. I think we probably all know the obvious ones like strawberries and raspberries, but I have to confess I'd probably struggle if I was pushed beyond that. 
The problem is, that when we eat fruit and veg out of it's normal growing season here in the UK (or at least in Europe), it probably means it's been shipped halfway around the world to arrive on our plates.

An air-freighted punnet of strawberries has almost the same carbon footprint (1.8kgCO2) as a raw steak (2kg). 

1kg of organic cherry tomatoes grown in the UK in March will have a carbon footprint of 50kg CO2 due to the need for heating of greenhouses.

A 250g pack of local seasonal asparagus has a carbon footprint of 125g of CO2. That same pack air-freighted to the UK from Peru in January has a carbon footprint of 3.5kg (28x greater)!!

You can find lots of 'eat the seasons' calendars online, including the one below from Eat Seasonably, which you can get as a poster (to pin to your fridge?) and even a tea towel!

My cheat's way of eating seasonally is to get an organic fruit and veg box - if it's not in season, it's not in there, and I don't even have to think about it!

4. Eat more plants

In early 2019 a group of over 30 world-leading scientists from around the globe got together to create a consensus on a diet that was healthy, and sustainable - capable of feeding 10 billion people (expected global population by 2050), that would minimise greenhouse gas emissions, prevent any species going extinct, have no expansion of farmland, and preserve water. Not asking much hey...?
The headline figures they came up with are:

• 100g red meat a week
• 200g chicken a week
• 250ml milk a day
• 200g fish a week
• 1 egg a week
• The majority of our protein should come from pulses and beans - 500g a week

Now there's a distinct lack of cake in that diet for my liking, and I have to confess that we are a long way from the climate ideal in our house but it does go to show what we should be aiming for. 

Here are some tips for upping the plants, pulses and beans in your diet:

1. Reduce the meat in stews and things like bolognese, and make the rest up with some red or green lentils. I promise you no-one will even notice the difference.
2. Try Meat Free Monday (or Tuesday, or Friday - it doesn't really matter..). If you're already nailing that, then can you do 5:2 - 5 days with meat and 2 without, or even 5 days veggie/vegan and 2 days with meat meals?
3. Can you go for a plant based lunch? Beans on toast and soup are really easy veggie/vegan options that usually get scoffed in our house!

5. Go plastic-free(ish)

I'm going to start off by saying that I think packaging on food is one of the hardest things to tackle in our homes. I always suggest people start off with some easier bits first, like reusable water bottles and coffee cups, and then look at the bathroom. Some packaging is genuinely helpful in extending the shelf-life of produce (shrink-wrapped cucumbers can prevent waste by up to 2/3), some is needed to protect the product (eg soft fruit) and some is there for the convenience of the supermarkets and consumers. 
Sometimes it can feel like trying to figure out the lesser of two evils if we're in the supermarket - organic fruit and veg will often be packaged in plastic in order to differentiate it from the conventional produce, which is a little, shall we say, frustrating..!

If you're like most of us, and stuck with a weekly mad dash around the supermarket, keep your eye out for plastic-free foods - they are there! Porridge oats, and even pasta are now becoming more widely available in cardboard and paper bags. I've got a post here with lots of hints and tips for plastic-free shopping at the supermarket.

Here are some other tips:

1. Getting a fruit and veg box will help to massively cut the volume of plastic entering your home, and allows the win-win of organic and plastic-free! If you're on a budget, remember it doesn't have to be all or nothing - can you get a veg box once a month? This would reduce your plastic use by around 25%!
2. Check out Zero Waste Near Me to find your nearest zero waste store where you can take your own containers to fill up with all kinds of storecupboard staples, from pasta and rice, to dried fruit. Again, it doesn't have to be all or nothing - if you can visit once a month or every other month and stock up, and then revert back to packaged produce until you can go again, that is absolutely still a Good Thing!
3. Go big...! Buy the biggest pack of something and then divide it out at home. For example, we buy the share bags of crisps, and simply pop a handful into a compartment in lunchboxes. We also get the 500g pots of yoghurt and use reusable pouches for the kids to take some to school.

4. What are the benefits of organic?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm going to say 'lots!', and I'll briefly outline them below. But one thing I really want to highlight that I don't think I had quite grasped before, is the huge benefit that organic has when it comes to the climate crisis. Soil stores carbon within it, and healthy soil is able to lock more carbon away. The vast majority of artificial fertilisers are fossil fuel based potentially giving our food a hefty carbon footprint before it's even left the farm to make it's way to the supermarket shelves. Routine use of pesticides kills off not only the 'pests' but also the beneficial insects as well, and as we heard in Episode 72 of the Sustainable(ish) podcast with Buckley's Bees, insect populations are crashing, having knock on effects on the ecosystems they inhabit, as well as a potentially catastrophic impact on how we farm.
One of the things I bang on about a lot, is the power of the choices that we make. When we're choosing organic, I think it's fair to say we're making a choice for the planet. For the health of our soils, our wildlife and nature, and for future generations. 

Here's that list of benefits I promised:

• Better for the planet
  According to the website Farm Carbon Toolkit, agriculture is responsible for 9% of all Greenhouse Gas emissions in the UK. Together with related emissions from changing land use and cutting down forests, it accounts for around 30% of GHG emissions globally. The Soil Association's research shows that if Europe’s farmland all followed organic principles, agricultural emissions could drop by 40-50% by 2050. That's a massive chunk of carbon saved right there.
• Higher welfare for livestock
  The Soil Association's standards for animal welfare are the highest of any certification in the UK - you can take a look at them here.
• Better for nature and wildlife
  Organic farming uses far fewer pesticides meaning that there is around 50% more plants and insects on organic farms, and 75% more wild bees.
• Better for our own health
  The routine use of pesticides and antibiotics in many conventional farming systems can mean that residues can be present in the food that we eat. Choosing organic hugely limits (eliminates?) the amount of chemicals that we are unwittingly ingesting.

There's lots more info on the benefits of organic on The Soil Association website here. 

5. Can organic feed the world?

There is an argument that to feed a growing global population that we need to keep pushing for higher and higher yields, and that farming organically would mean that we wouldn't have enough food (yields can sometimes be lower). 
Conventional farming has weakened the soil - when I interviewed Anna at The Urban Worm she blew me away when she told me that here in the UK we only have around 30-40 years of healthy soil left. And the poorer the soil becomes, the lower the yields will be, and the more artificial fertilisers we need - it's a vicious cycle from which it will be very difficult to recover.

30% of all food produced is wasted. And 30% of the global population is clinically obese. So really, what we're looking at as the population grows, isn't a problem of volume of food - it's more about the quality of the food, and distributing it effectively.
If we're able to shift farming practices to ones that preserve soil health, produce better quality food, and reduce food waste, we'd go a long way to being able to feed the world without wrecking it.