For anyone avidly following our progress:
We enter our second week of Lent on a local diet with some trepidation. In particular, the lack of sugar and salt seems to make food taste particularly bland. We do not add much of our own salt to food, but by necessity we have been making everything, including bread and pasta, which cuts out salt intake. Honey is a poor substitute for this.
Due to the lack of tea and coffee, we have been surviving on other drinks. Parsnip is an unworthy coffee substitute and you quickly get tired of the taste. I find acorn coffee more drinkable, but even that is largely unpalatable. H has taken to drinking rosemary coffee and I am drinking a lot more water and hot blackberry coffee (which is just boiling water onto frozen blackberries). I am not sure if it is caused by the lack of stimulants, but we both generally feel tired.
Meat is a particular highlight of our diet, adding taste and interest to endlessly dull meals. We have a main meat meal at the weekend with relatives and mixed a bit of what was left with vegetables in pastry for two subsequent days.
Our daughter B is holding up quite well (if you’re not aware, we were eating a non-exclusive local diet for a few weeks before Lent to practice), though she is currently away with Grandparents eating Normal Food.
Eating out is a particular problem. I am not aware of anything I can legitimately eat in terms of fast-food, so I just had a pint of milk for lunch. Yesterday I was meeting someone for lunch and resorted to a plate of chips, reasoning that it is most likely that they are local out of the whole menu.
I am also not good at baking bread, so that is a bit of a trial. Pasta is better, although quite a strain and time consuming.
3 Comments
February 14, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Living where you do, Joe, can you be more than 100 miles away from Essex? This salt seems to be produced from materials local to Essex http://www.maldonsalt.co.uk/howitsmade/ and I can purchase it in my local supermarket and farm shop. It is also retailed as Tidmans salt. This might solve your problem. I don’t think it’s healthy to cut back on salt totally.
I believe they used a roasted chicory and something (barley?) mix to replace coffee during the war. Where is camp coffee made? I thin that might be something similar. Can’t vouch for the taste though.
Best of luck with your efforts, but make sure you keep healthy.
Karin xx
February 15, 2008 at 9:20 am
Thanks. No, that salt is not within 100 miles. None of the commercially available substitutes are even produced in the UK.
February 15, 2008 at 12:06 pm
good job sticking with it. It sounds like you’re not enjoying it that much though! I think it’s really important for experiments with alternative approaches to food consumption to be positive experiences, so my advice would be to give yourselves a few get-out clauses since you’re so early in the experiment – such as salt (for health reasons), or the “Marco Polo Clause (allowing spices – for some non-specific historical reason!).
Making a 100% switch to local foods takes time, lots of research, and requires the development of new contacts (hence the emphasis on local food networks), so don’t go too hard on yourself and put your self off forever!!
Good to follow your progress.