GEORGE FAMILY FOCUSING ON THE ENVIRONMENT WITH BEES AND PLANTS
As producers of a foodstuff prevalent in the diet of vegetarians and vegans the world over, Nikk and Catherine have always endeavoured to explore the full potential of the mushrooms.
Combine this with an increased focus on the environment, the unending beef crisis, and two primary school-age children and you can see why they have begun to incorporate more and more vegetable-only recipes into their diet.
‘ There’s a lot more people now going towards a vegetable based diet, even us at home,’ says Nikk. ‘Before with a vegetarian meal you’d probably only get risotto or something like that, but now the recipes are really great, we started trying them and thought “yes, this is it.”’
Catherine estimates that they now, as a family, only eat meat twice a week.
‘We’re not vegetarians by any stretch but we have started following different recipes and using the mushrooms ourselves. It was a conscious decision on our part. I think people are looking more at their food now, they want something a bit more. There’s the whole thing with farming now, and climate change and the impact on the environment the farming industry is having.’
And when the couple’s two boys, Aaron (12) and Kyle (10), returned home from school having learned about the importance of a certain striped flying-insect it motivated them to take further steps to help their local environment.
‘Our kids are learning it in school, they came back saying “the bees, we have to mind the bees”, so Nikk got hives last year,’ Catherine says.
The original plan had been to get just one hive, then two, then perhaps three so Nikk, Aaron and Kyle could have one each. Ultimately, they ended up with four hives. And already the two boys have been following in their parents’ footsteps, showing an entrepreneurial streak of their own.
‘ The kids have had a ball over the summer, they sold some of the honey to their teachers. They’ve always been down here, picking mushrooms, going around with their trays,’ says Catherine.
However, the mother admits she is not entirely optimistic about her youngest boy taking over the family business in the future.
‘Kyle maintains he’s going to be a scientist, he wants to be the first Irishman in space,’ she says.