The (pretty) good life
Being sustainable is hard, but it’s easy to be a little bit better, says Alexandra Dudley
Why being sustainable doesn’t have to always mean grand gestures
Iconfess, I occasionally buy socks from Primark – needs must. But I’ve a rule to live as sustainably as I can, to never throw food away, to make stock almost as routinely as brushing my teeth, and to join the growing band of fashion-loving, imageinterested folk who care about the environment. For having an eco-conscience is the mood of the moment. Holly Allenby, founder of sustainable online marketplace The-acey.com (which has seen a 150% sales increase in the last year) explains how increasingly “people are thinking about purchasing power, investing in products aligned with their ethics and aesthetics”. Following Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the Paris climate accord comes a movement focused on taking control of our own worlds, making positive changes for ourselves and those around us. Those after us. But where should the overworked individual start?
ONE OF THE MANY MEGABRANDS CHAMPIONING THE GENERAL CAUSE
is Selfridges (see also Adidas swimwear made from recycled plastic and Waitrose’s new Go Eco range). Its thought-provoking Wasted pop-up had top chefs serving lettuce-butt and cod-head kedgeree; tasty proof that we toss too much. Skye Gyngell’s restaurant Spring proves scraps can still be elegant, transforming lunch-service leftovers into her fantastic £20 three-course nightly scratch menu. Even middle England is getting involved, with Daylesford doling out its used coffee grounds to use as compost. Download the Olio app to share surplus food with neighbours (think lots of unopened spice jars) or scroll through Too-good-to-go for half-price untouched pastries.
And as chef Fergus Henderson’s
’90s call to action was to eat animals from nose to tail, so now we’re looking to push plant-based ingredients the whole way, too. Think root to chute, throwing vegetable peelings into stock with leftover herb stalks. Unsure about those floppy parsnips? Roast with cumin before blitzing with stock, and voila – sustainable, saintly soup. Make like recipe writer Alice Hart and use carrot tops in zesty lentil salads (slightly peppery), or the Hemsleys who blitz broccoli stalks in a blender, making broccoli rice to stir fry with egg and soy sauce.
There’s a joy in creating your own circular ecosystem, in becoming more involved than just slinging newspapers in the recycling box. It’s satisfying to nurture a wormery (junior ones from Wormery.com are space saving), have composters you can throw waste into and use the results as fertiliser for your plants. Coffee grounds, egg shells (crunched up) and banana skins are prime fodder for your new pets.
Adopting these small changes is becoming easier as brands make sustainable options more readily available. Do you need chicken in every desk-side salad? Could you turn those potato peelings into crisps by simply baking them with a little oil? We can’t always make grand gestures, no one could be fully sustainable. But even little things make a difference. Land & Sea: Secrets To Simple, Sustainable, Sensational Food by Alexandra Dudley (Orion,
£25; out 27th July)