Teign Estuary Transition

How about organising a ‘food swap’ with friends, neighbours or colleagues – if you each swap something you’ve grown in your garden (or windowsill) then you both get more variety.

Hi how’s it going? Is anyone struggling? Is it getting easier or more difficult? Too expensive? Let us know what the issues are.

Haven’t got started yet? It’s not too late! If you could plan just one meal using locally produced/sourced food it will help us to understand more about the challenges involved in this experiment.

Looking for inspiration for locally sourced food? Here are some websites that might help:

http://www2.btcv.org.uk/display/freefoodguide
BTCV’s Grow Your Own Food Guide, this downloadable guide aims to help you get the best from food and reduce the impact on our environment and is crammed with tips, advice and recipes.

http://www.food-mag.co.uk/index.php
Your free guide to the best restaurants, pubs, cafes, accommodation, recipes and shopping in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset, Bath and Bristol.

http://www.lovetheflavour.co.uk/
Described as Your essential guide to the best eating and drinking in Devon, this guide aims to promote Devon-based businesses committed to producing and using local raw materials and ingredients.

http://www.tastebudsmagazine.co.uk/
A free magazine that celebrates food and drink in Devon.

By the way, look what I spotted in the Co-op:

West Country milk

Teignmouth Triangle, 10am: preparing the display to launch “Eat for Devon” are Mike, Jenny, Flo, Fran and Helen.

A couple of shots of ‘Eat for Devon’ posters in town – in Cubby Hole newsagents and Redfern’s Butchers:

Poster in Cubby Hole newsagents

Poster in Redfern's Butchers

Our challenge to eat food produced or sourced locally starts tomorrow on Saturday 21st August. We’ll be in Teignmouth Triangle from 10am so please come and say hello.

I work at Torbay Hospital, and have invited some colleagues to join me in this experiment. Please are you able to encourage friends and relatives, colleagues, or people in clubs/societies etc. to “eat for Devon”? It would be great to let us know of groups who have been invited to join us, so please ‘leave a comment’.

Our challenge starts on Saturday 21st August, so I’m starting to think about shopping and menus for the coming week.

Some staple items may be tricky? Has anyone found a source of Devon-produced milk, bread, cereals? Please click on ‘leave a comment’ to share ideas.

I’ve started asking some local shops if they will help explain where the food they sell is sourced. Interested ones based in Teignmouth so far include:
Redfern’s Butchers, Lloyd Maunder Butchers, Ruffles Delicatessen, Nutters, Poppadums, the Great Catch fish shop, Tibbs Greengrocers, the Home Made Bakery, the Owl and the Pussycat, Cubby Hole newsagents and the Co-op.
Please talk to your local suppliers and if they are willing to help, add them by clicking on ‘leave a comment’.

You can also download a copy of the Eat for Devon poster. Perhaps you could display one in your window?

Can you meet the challenge to eat only locally produced food for one week?

Teign Estuary Transition is keen to experiment with whether it’s possible to eat only food produced or sourced within Devon and we’d like to encourage you to try this for a week.

Quite possibly it may just demonstrate how difficult  and expensive this might currently be.  But the Transition movement is about transitioning to a local economy to cope with the challenges posed by Peak Oil, so we thought it would be fun to try this out now!

We’re starting on Saturday 21st August to coincide with the Teignmouth Local Produce Market and will be offering tips on the blog  and inviting you to add your  comments and ideas, so watch this space!