UK | Bay Area Community Exchange

Public Garden Plots Put Town On Path To Food Independence

24-01-2012

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Self-sufficiency is a big part of living a more sustainable lifestyle. When you’re not dependent on others for your food, water, energy, clothes, or entertainment, you have more control over how those things are grown, purified, and produced.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen individuals become self-sufficient by growing their own food or going off-grid through renewable energy, but rarely have we seen an entire town support the idea of long-term food independence the way the small Victorian mill town of Todmorden, West Yorkshire has.

Citizens in the town have rallied behind an effort called “Incredible Edible,” a program and website dedicated to making the town of Todmorden food-independent by 2018.

To that end, townspeople have constructed raised vegetable, fruit and flower garden beds on almost every available nook of groundspace throughout the town. There are plots in front of the police station, the railway station, and even down by the canal. Citizens are invited to help themselves to whatever happens to be in season in the beds, at absolutely no cost.

Incredible Edible is also about much more than plots of veg, writes Wake Up World, it’s also about educating people about food, and stimulating the local economy.

There are lessons in pickling and preserving fruits, courses on bread-making, and the local college is to offer a BTEC in horticulture. The thinking is that young people who have grown up among the street veg may make a career in food.

The Incredible Edible effort has also helped to stimulate the local economy, as now local cafes and restaurants can source many of their ingredients from right within the city limits.

Top Image Credit: Flickr – vicki moore

UK Study Finds Sharing Can Make You Happier

By: Beth Buczynski

15-11-2011

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By Kelly McCartney, reprinted with permission from Shareable.net

A new study — The Great Sharing Economy: A Report into Sharing Across the UK — has found that a good 80 percent of British citizens are happier when they share. Those statistics are at odds, however, with the wealth disparity that plagues the UK just as it does the U.S. There, a full 50 percent of the population accounts for a mere 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.

Still, a largely untapped drive to share is present in a large majority of UK residents, as the report notes:

Eight of 10 people say that sharing makes them happy.
Seven out of 10 people in the UK say that sharing makes them feel better about themselves.
UK residents have more stuff in our lives than ever before. The average child, according to our survey, has over 75 different toys, gadgets, and items that they own at home.
UK residents share less compared with a generation ago, with more homes occupied by single people and more cars on the road with single drivers.
UK residents want to share more. Over half of the UK would love to find ways of being able to share their time and resources within their local community.
One in three people would be willing to share their garden with someone else locally, if they looked after it to grow vegetables or flowers.
75% of us believe that sharing is good for the environment and 6 out of 10 of us would share his or her car journey with someone if it were possible.
UK residents do not think they’re good at sharing. The poorer you are, the less likely you are to think people share.
Those in the Northwest, traditionally the co-operative heartland, share most.
One in four people in the UK spends over 20 hours or more alone each week.
47% of us feel uncomfortable about sharing things outside the family.
We’re most likely to share a bottle of wine, a pot of tea, and pizza, and least likely to share our toothbrushes, bank accounts, and our bath.

In the end, if people want to share, getting their communities and municipalities to clear the way for them to share can help a lot. To that end, cities can implement policies that making sharing easier — things like loosening restrictions on home businesses, giving plenty of assigned parking spaces to carshare vehicles, promoting sharing of all sorts, and so on. Folks looking to share toothbrushes and baths, though, are on their own.

Image Credit: igor kisselev/Shutterstock

UK Ditches “Sell-By” Dates To Reduce Food Waste

By: Beth Buczynski

15-09-2011

Uncategorized

Sell-By date

These days, everyone is hyper-concerned about food safety. Food expiration dates are meant as a guideline for determining the quality of the product within. But many will toss food into the garbage, rather than risk eating something that’s past its prime. But are these helpful labels doing more harm than good?

If you shop at the grocery store, you’re probably familiar with ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ date marks. These labels give shoppers an idea of when the product was made, and how long it’s been sitting on the shelf.

However, use of an often misleading “sell-by” and “display-until” often means that food is thrown away long before it’s in danger of going bad.

DEFRA, Britain’s Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, recently release new guidelines with regard to these food date labels, stating that the use of ‘sell by’ or ‘display until’ labels is confusing to the consumer.

“We want to end the food labelling confusion and make it clear once and for all when food is good and safe to eat. This simpler and safer date labelling guide will help households cut down on the £12 billion worth of good food that ends up in the bin,” said UK Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman (Environmental Leader).

Of course, consumers should realize that these labels are simply intended to help stores rotate their stock in a timely fashion. More education can help with this. But retailers should also realize that humans have been trained to recognize food labels as health protections, and no one likes to bite into to a big chunk of spoiled food. And they’d rather throw it away than make a family member sick.

But the dumpster diving movement proves that a large percentage of the food that ends up in grocery store trash cans is completely edible. Remember, food wasn’t always pumped full of preservatives and store in a refrigerator. And the human race seems to have done just fine.

Do you adhere to expiration dates printed on food? Or do you follow your nose? Tell us in a comment!

Image Credit: Flickr – The She-Creature