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Shop Locally...
Buy from your local independent shops. Get your
vegetables from the grocers, your meat from the butchers, your bread
from the bakers, and your newspaper from the newsagents whenever you
can. You could join a box delivery scheme or a food co-op.
Shopping this way ensures more of the profits go back to the
producers. Contact the soil Association for a list of organic
box schemes across the UK, by calling 0117 929 0661, or visit www.soilassociation.org.uk
Also ask your council bout box schemes run by the local community,
typically allotment gardeners. Or, to find your nearest farmers
market, visit www.bigbarn.co.uk
or www.farmersmarkets.net
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Shop Considerately...
Buy fairtrade products whenever you can. There are now
over 250 FAIRTRADE products from 100 companies ranging from roses and
mangoes, to tea, coffee and chocolate. In particular, the Co-op
supermarket now ensure that all of their own brand teas, coffees and
chocolates are fairly traded.
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Be Thrifty...
Buy Locally, Don't assume that non-supermarket food is always
more expensive. A South West Local Food Partnership survey
in 2002 found that food sold at farmers' markets was 30-40% cheaper
than similar products in local supermarkets.
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Be Food Literate...
Read the labels on your food. The more heavily processed
a food, the poorer the nutrition is likely to be.
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Buy Seasonally... Put
a chart of what's in season in this country on your fridge. Buy
seasonal, locally produced foods whenever you can, they are
cheaper and they taste better. Stop routinely buying food which
is out of season. Think about food miles. Try and
choose the products which have clocked up the fewest.
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Protect your Community... Make
the effort to scrutinise local planning applications, particularly
if they involve changes in shops and supermarkets. If you
don't want another large superstore in your area, write to your
council. Explain that you prefer the choice offered by small
independent stores, and the wealth that they give to YOUR local
community.
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Create Less Waste... Say
no to plastic bags. Almost one sixth of the average families
annual food bill is actually spent on packaging. Where there is
a choice, go for produce that uses the least packaging. Write
to the supermarket you usually use, and tell them that you will go
elsewhere unless they reduce the amount of packaging that they use.
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Put pressure on the people
elected to represent you by Lobbying... Write
to your MP asking them to sign up to EDM 1256 in support of the
Children's Food Bill. This Bill would ensure that food advertising
to children was regulated, practical food education was put back on
the curriculum and schools implemented 'whole school' policies on
food. Also write and ask them to sign up to EDM 817 in
support of the 'Breaking the Armlock' campaign calling for
stricter controls over the major supermarkets' trading practices,
particularly to stop them passing on unreasonable costs and demands to
farmers and growers in the UK and overseas. Or contact the
NFWI's Public Affairs Department for a campaign postcard.
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Make sure that your local
services work for you. Campaign... Find
out if your local council, school governors, hospital trusts and your
employer buy local, seasonal and organic food when awarding catering
contracts for their canteens. If not write to your MP and
your local council demanding that public institutions prioritise local
sourcing when sourcing food.
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Share your Knowledge...
Cook a meal with a child. The loss of practical food
skills is impoverishing our diet, and our health. Share your
love of cooking with a child, or a friend. Get them off
processed foods, and back to cooking with fresh ingredients.
