Eco audit: going against the dominant food culture

There’s nothing like Not Eating the Same as Others to make you stand out.  It doesn’t seem to matter what your difference is.  It gets trickier.  Sometimes you are seen as being Difficult.

In your teens, it is important to find a few ways to be different from your family.  To embrace causes.  To have high and lofty ideals.  And, on occasion, to Make Life Difficult for your Mum.

So being a vegetarian ticked all of these boxes.  And thankfully, my mum did cope.  She may well have been fed up behind the scenes, but she didn’t say I couldn’t.

I come from a family of Good Eaters.  (I will calm down with the caps, soon.)  There were a few things that each of us didn’t like, but we mostly all ate the same.  We ate healthy food, we ate homemade food, and we didn’t tend to leave much, if anything, on our plates.

So starting to eat differently from the rest of the family was a challenge.  Luckily, there was cheese.  If I had been keener on egg, that would have helped, but I’m not.  (I discovered Spanish omelette towards the end of my main vegetarian years, and it was a bit of a revelation.)

However, it wasn’t so odd.  There were a few other veggies about.  There was still plenty we could all eat together at home – and when others were having meat, I was probably having veggie burger things.  So it generally worked out.

When I visited my German penfriend, I had much more of a sense of going against the dominant food culture.  Germany is a country that has good health food shops – but it is also a country which is serious about its meat.

Luckily, the mum of my penfriend was already on the case.  She wanted lighter food, things that were better for you.  She was finding ways to cook with tofu before I had any idea what it was. I was impressed – and grateful that I could eat what I wanted.

Fast forward to the last few months.  I am now cooking gluten-free and dairy-free food.  It’s not every meal, but there’s significant amounts of food planning, label scrutiny, and so on.  And when you live in Europe, with lots of meals including wheat products, and/or dairy, you can bet you will feel like you are going against the dominant food culture.

It has been interesting to learn how much of the world is dairy-free – in main because of lactose intolerance.  And you can also pick out places where wheat is much less the big deal: corn-based products (think Latin America, and proper corn tortillas), and of course rice-based products (much of Asia).

The best place to be gluten-free and dairy-free is probably somewhere like Thailand.  Rice noodles.  Coconut milk.  But that is somewhat at odds with what food can be produced in the UK.  And therein lies an extra complication: what it means for the environment to ship in those foods that can be tolerated.

Of course, there are UK options that work just fine.  Three cheers for potatoes, as a starch with loads of variations.  Fish and chips.  Homemade roast dinners.  Boiled eggs as a great standby. All good.  And we do those too.

Fortunately, it’s getting easier and easier to buy, cook and eat food in the UK that is gluten-free.  It’s not mainstream, but it is more and more familiar.  I’ve been able to find almost everything I need from regular supermarkets, which is a big help.

Dairy-free – a bit less familiar, but also still doable.  Think cakes made with oil, instead of butter.  Think almond or soya milk on your cereal – both a little sweet, like regular milk.  The main recipient of the cooking isn’t a tea or coffee drinker, so there isn’t that shift to make. This one was actually the easier shift to make.

But both? It’s a double whammy.  Your cafe, out and about, might have gluten-free, but is unlikely to have dairy-free too.  We have a new respect for meringues (sugar and eggs).  And we are the lucky ones, I feel – because we don’t have to worry about eggs, soya or nuts, that can cause such tricky reactions for those who can’t tolerate them.

Last year’s droughts had an impact on world harvests for wheat, potatoes and soya.  And we use 2 and 3 quite a lot.  Food sufficiency in the UK is becoming more of a thought – and a dilemma.

It’s one thing to want to buy locally produced food – it’s another when you can’t necessarily manage it. Maybe it’s up to those of us at home who can still eat what we want to support UK produce.

And to think a bit more – again – about what goes into the supermarket trolley.