So let's get right into it.
100% NZ Grown - Is it sustainable?
By the end of my two weeks it was clear that being 100% NZ Grown isn't sustainable for me. Being 100% NZ Grown isn't realistic.
It means that me and my partner can't go out to dinner, I can't accept any foods people offer me, I can't grab anything but fruit from shops when I'm out and about and hungry! ... Things which all drove me a little crazy.
Although on the plus side - if you can put up with those sacrifices - it does save you money.
The whole fortnight was made worse by the fact that I'm currently in another one of my phases where proteins make me feel nauseous. So I wasn't eating a lot of lentils, eggs or cheese.
I was pretty much living on oats and plain yoghurt, mandarins and roasted vegetables. This took a major toll on my protein intake and my iron.
Usually on average I get around 60-70g protein a day and 75% of my RDI for iron. 75% seems enough to keep me in the acceptable range for Iron levels when I get my blood tests. However since I haven't been able to eat proteins, my protein intake dropped down to an average of 50g and my iron intake was sitting around the 50% mark.
By the end of the 2 weeks I was feeling faint, tired and increasingly put off the idea of food all together due to feeling queasy most of the time. On Monday I even had to leave work early because I felt like I was going to faint. I got a blood test done later that day and turns out my iron levels have dropped quite a bit.
So maybe if I had been able to eat enough lentils, eggs and cheese, it might have been fine.
Certainly if I was a meat-eater I think it would be a hell of a lot easier as there is no protein, iron or b12 worries. So I would still recommend it to others, so long as they are able to maintain their protein levels.
What have you learnt from your NZ Grown Fortnight?
I have learnt to think more about where the products I'm buying are coming from. I have realised that there are some easy NZ Grown changes I can make. For instance, I can continue buying NZ Grown Organic flour from Huckleberry Farms and I can try to keep my foreign food intake down to the luxuries.
I have also actually learnt that most of the processed foods don't taste that good, I just eat them out of habit. On my last night, I was fantasizing about all the foods I could eat the next day. I thought they would taste even better after not having them for 2 weeks. Unfortunately it turned out to be the opposite.
Shop bread is bland and lacks the flavour of home-made bread. Even the salt and vinegar potato chips I had bored me. Processed foods are so bland compared to fruit and vegetables. It's so unsatisfying!
So what are some long term changes you will make?
I plan to buy what I can from New Zealand. For instance, I will stick with the NZ Grown Organic Flour. But for the items that we don't grow here, I will be trying to find Certified Fair-trade and Organic options. If I can't get these products in the supermarket, there is always the Trade Aid store which sells some of your common "Luxury" products such as Organic FT Sugar, Coffee, Tea and Cacao products such as Cocoa powder (Baking), Drinking Chocolate, Chocolate - in multiple flavours, and even nuts, dried fruits and spices.
On Tuesday I got this little bundle!
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| (Sourced from Trade Aid) |
I haven't tried the coffee yet but the drinking chocolate was nice. It is quite simply organic FT Cocoa powder and powdered organic FT sugar. So no nasty binders, fillers, colours, flavours or numbers you can't even identify.
It is nice and smooth, not too bitter like plain cocoa. I made it with 1 tsp Drinking Chocolate and 2 tsp sugar, but I think next time I'd use 2 tsp Drinking Chocolate because it was quite mild.
So, basically I plan to continue getting my main foods from New Zealand. I want to continue making my own bread and such with NZ Grown Flour. And maybe once I get some plain white wheat flour, I'll even try making my own pasta (A future blog post, perhaps?). I will also continue making my own toasted oats for cereal in the morning, although I might start adding some Fair-trade Organic dried fruits and seeds for the added nutrition.
Why is Fair Trade and Organic products important, in your opinion?
I believe that buying Fair-trade is just that, fair! And I don't know about you, but my mother taught me that we should be fair. In our society we don't even think about where products come from any more. When we look at an item, we don't think about the people who farmed it and what country they live in. We look at the price tag and that's about it. Occasionally we might look at the nutrition of the product, but that's as far as we usually go. This is something even I have been guilty to, and it is something I'm wanting to change about myself. Trying to buy organic is just another part of being fair.
Not all farmers can afford the protective clothing required to keep them safe from the chemicals they use, which results in them getting sick, or even dying. By buying Fair-trade and Organic, I am encouraging fair wages for all the millions of hard working farmers all over the world and improving their health through not supporting the use of chemicals.
And gees, don't even get me started on the environmental benefits and the health benefits that I myself will get from not buying products dosed in chemicals.
What advice would you give to anyone wanting to try an NZ Grown Fortnight?
Be prepared. Prepare, prepare, prepare. If you're working, you might not have the time during the work weak to make things like bread, so make sure you sort out some staples before you start.
Make up some bread and keep enough out to last you a few days and freeze the rest. Organic bread grows mould a lot faster due to the lack of chemicals, so don't waste bread by having too much out at once.
Also toast up some muesli before you start your fortnight so you have breakfasts sorted.
If you eat meat, perhaps you could even do a roast and have fill containers with 1 portion and freeze so that daily you have a portion of protein for when you're at work. They could be used in sandwiches or just eaten with vegetables.
You could do the same thing with lentils or lentil patties, fellow vegetarians. That was really something I should have done.
One thing I did find good during the week if I was desperate for something filling but was out of bread was this... scone/bread hybrid. I could make them up and bake them in about 30 minutes and they went well with soup.
I pretty much just got about half a cup of warm water, chucked in some honey and yeast and milk.
Then got a cup or two of flour and rubbed in about 50g butter, then added 1/2 cup grated cheese. I'd put in as much of the yeast mixture I needed to turn the flour into a dough, form them into little balls and then pop them in the oven for 20 minutes.
They we were really tasty.
Why not just make scones? Well, the baking powder/soda both said they were just packaged in New Zealand. The Yeast didn't actually say anything about where it was made or even packaged, but I think we grow our own yeast... don't we? I'm not sure. It was the 1 of 2 things I knew I wouldn't be able to go the week without. Yeast and the added salt in cheeses which I couldn't say where it came from. They were both items I accepted because I knew I'd need the nutrition from the things they were both in.
So there you go, not entirely sustainable but still an eye opening week which has encouraged me to make some good changes in my life!
Why not give it a go? It is fun and entertaining and opens your eyes to where products really come from! If the whole 2 weeks sounds too much for you, why not try a 24 or 48 hour challenge?
Or, you could really challenge yourself and do a whole month!
Well, I hope you are all having a good day and if you have any comments, questions or suggestions, please leave them below!
Quote of the day:
"Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible."
– St. Francis of Assisi
– St. Francis of Assisi
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