East Lothian Local Food Directory No comments yet

   Food is a huge part of our contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.  For the average one of us here in East Lothian, it’s one of the big three along with transport and housing.  But you can’t avoid it… not for long anyway! 

Producing food and getting it from where it grew into our tummies has become an incredibly complex process. At every stage, greenhouse gas emissions increase.  They add up in production of the food – more fertilisers, pesticides, movement of animals.  They add up in the processing - pasteurisation, ingredients to make the food last longer or look better. They add up in the packaging - making sure the product is immune to supermarket poisoners, making us want to buy it and not the very similar one next to it.  For most of us, what foods we choose will make more of a difference than where it comes from – beef is particularly bad (the cows break wind - they can’t help it – and that releases methane).  Weight for weight, beef has about 12 times the green house gas impact of chicken, or 57 times the impact of a potato.      

But eating local food is surely part of the solution.  Take lamb.  This country exported around 80,000 tonnes in 2006 – and imported 140,000 tonnes.  Why are we swapping sheep with each other? 

All of which is a long way round to saying that East Lothian Council has produced a directory of local food, which you can find HERE

Very tasty!