Beans!

This week's shopping has been a bit chaotic as I'm still in scouting/discovery mode at the moment. Once I've been doing this for a bit longer and got a good grasp on what's available and where, and how to substitute and adapt certain things, I can then get more organised.

What I've always done as regards grocery shopping is to make a weekly menu of meals and a shopping list of the things required, which I've then stuck to as much as possible (with the odd deviation when a long day has driven me to the chip shop). Of course it's very tempting to just take that list to the supermarket and get everything in one go, and hang the global consequences. But I've tried to resist that as much as possible by using local butchers for my meat, nearby farm shops/greengrocers for fruit and veg, and then just using the supermarkets for canned food and things like pasta, rice and so on. And then I've tried to support the more "ethical" supermarkets like the Waitrose and the Co-op (though I'm fast revising my views on the latter as they're disappointing me on a regular basis lately).

There's nothing wrong with that approach, but I do want to see what I can do about the canned food problem. I do live in the real world, and there are times when one just wants to take something from the cupboard and be eating it within minutes. So I've cast my net, on the prowl for enterprising souls who've had the resources to do more* than I ever could in this area, and was delighted to come upon the Hodmedod bean company. While outside the sacred boundaries of Lincolnshire (trust me, if you've ever been here you'll know it's a de facto nationality, not just a county!), they're not so far away just down there in East Anglia, and the work they're doing through organisations like the East Anglia Food Link is very heartening and encourages me in my long-term wish to see something like it here in God's country.

Now, as my good friend pointed out when I enthused about it to him, £1.19 is quite a bit more than most people are used to spending on a can of baked beans, and there's the delivery to think about too. But I'm finding on this project that what you shell out as extra premiums for things like this you more than make back on other things that are much cheaper. For example, the carrier bag full of freshly picked apples that I got from the local farm shop yesterday for 50p, versus Asda's 6 apples that have been in storage for the best part of the year and will go off if you don't eat them in a week for £1. I mean, just look at my scrumpings from yesterday in Spilsby:

Here you're looking at 6 eggs for 80p, parsnips (25p), carrots (30p), swede (50p), broccoli (55p), the aforementioned carrier bag of apples for 50p, huge bottle of white wine vinegar for £2.25, Lymn Bank cracked black pepper cheese for £2.50 and a jar of local honey for £3.65. I've looked on the Tesco online shopping website and the cheapest I could get an equivalent bundle for would be pushing the £20 boundary.

I'm finding that even factoring in how chaotic I am with all this at the moment, I haven't spent any more on food than I would've done previously. My weekly food budget for me and the two teenage girls has been £40 for about the last five years and I haven't gone over that since starting this project. As you see, we've been eating well! Check out this week's menu on the kitchen blackboard:

Not exactly your average low income family's weekly fare.So when you think even an enthusiastic bean eater isn't realistically going to go through more than three or four cans a week, you've easily made up the difference between the Hodmedod beans and the supermarket's offerings.

But moreover, if you're going to commit to sustainable eating (as it were), you can't go tutting all the time at things being more expensive than the supermarket. It's exactly because of the global food industry's constant driving down of prices that we're in the situation that forces a revision of the whole affair. People put their money where their mouth is, I firmly believe that: if you're not willing to shell out a few extra quid towards this lark, you might as well make yourself a bumper sticker that says "Let the world burn - I got 2 for 1 at Asda!"

Anyway, if I order two 12 can cases of beans from these guys it'll last me a good while, and I'll get free delivery! But I'm also working on persuading someone local to stock them. I'm thinking Meyer's in Horncastle might be interested. I've been a happy customer of their café for a couple of years now, and have recently started using their deli for local produce. I got my usual Lincs Poacher cheese from them and have started using it to make cheese sauce - gives a fuller flavour than Cheddar.

This time I also got a bit of Just Jane to see what the kids made of it. S says it reminds her of Dairylea, but with a "cleaner" flavour (her word), and I concur.

Now, if you'll excuse me, my lunch has been sitting there waiting to be eaten while I've been typing this, and I think you'll understand that it's taken iron discipline to get this far. Yes, I know it's only 11.30am but I had breakfast at 6 and I'm starving, so there! :)

*Refering to the "do more" idea... that was short-hand for the context. In fact, it's a lot for someone to do, to switch over to this way of living (as I know!) and it's not to be disparaged and held up against people who establish their own organic farms and what have you. In fact if everyone "only" committed to getting even 50% of their diet supplied from local produce, it'd make a HUGE difference.