Sustainable Food Tips

• Grow your own. Gardening is the ultimate in sustainable food and has ‘food miles’ of less than 20m! There are heaps of things that you can grow easily and support to do this. Look out for books, workshops and friends who are willing to help you learn. Alternatively, go to the garden shop, ask what is easy and go from there!

- Check out the community gardens on campus and head along to the volunteer days.

- The UC Community Gardens gardening group has weekly meetings to learn tips.

- Some online resources to help you get started are here.

• Eat in season. Seasonal food tends to be cheaper and more nutrient dense. Seasonal food, especially if you buy it locally, has travelled less and used less intensive methods to grow, which is better for you and the environment. Food starts to lose nutrients as soon as it’s picked, so the quicker you eat it, the better it is for you.
• Eat less meat and dairy. A lot of resources are used to create meat and dairy, and in Canterbury, a lot of pollution in the rivers is from the dairy industry. You don’t need to go full vegetarian or vegan, just cut back on animal based consumption. Introducing a meat-free meal once a week is a great place to start. ‘Meatless Mondays’ is the global campaign promoting a meat free day each week.
• Eat only sustainably managed fish. The ocean’s eco-system needs protecting and is fast being over-fished. Check out the Forest and Bird’s fish guide for what fish is good to eat!
• Eat mostly unprocessed plant-based food. It’s healthier, better for the environment, has less packaging, uses less chemicals and tastes better. 
• Make your own. Bake bread, muffins, cakes, biscuits etc to put in your lunches or snack on at home. Some baking freezes really well and you can take one out the night before to defrost it. You can also make your own stock, baked beans, cheese, non-dairy milks, crackers, and so many other things!
• Brew your own beer! Beer can be expensive, and create a lot of waste (yes, it’s recyclable, but it is still waste!). Brewing your own is fun, cheap and much more sustainable. There are kits available online, at Bin Inn and in specialty shops. UC even has a brew club to help get you started and share insider’s tips!
• Think about the life cycle of the item.  What resources went into creating it? How far did it travel to get here? What happens to the packaging (can it be recycled?)? Check out the waste tips for more information about recycling waste.
• Use reusable drinking vessels. Bring your own drink bottle and avoid buying bottled water. Steel ones are the latest fashion accessory for the discerning sustainability advocate, but anything reusable is great. This is the same with coffee cups, for a long time only the at home filter coffee was the only appropriate coffee for those huge mugs, but now we are spoilt for choice with barista friendly cups! Pick one up from your local cafe or order online from Ideal cup. If your local cafe doesn’t stock them, why not request it?!
• Shop from bulk bins using your own containers. No plastic bags needed! And you can purchase as much (or as little) as you need
• Bring your own bags when you shop
• Watch your waste! It is estimated that 1/3rd of our food ends up getting thrown out.

- Purchasing more regular, smaller amounts of food can help reduce waste.

- Alternatively, plan your meals and go shopping with a list.

- Look in your cupboards before you go shopping to see what you can create!

- Don’t throw things out just because the date has past. A great website to find out how long you can keep things before you throw them out is http://www.stilltasty.com/

- If you are throwing out your food compost it. Options for composting include bokashi, worm farms, a home compost stack, somebody else’s compost stack and lastly, the CCC green bins. Do not put it in the rubbish bin! (why? Because because food in the landfill breaks down anaerobically, creating methane, which we all know is something we would rather avoid!)

• Bring your lunch to work/school/uni/your travels to the moon.

- Get some re-usable containers and pack your lunch. Take away containers work well, but are often not leak free, so it can be worth investing in some sealed ones!

- There are also great re-usable alternatives to plastic wrap and sandwich bags (such as ginger pye) to keep your lunch fresh!

• Ideas for lunches are:

- Sandwiches

- Leftovers from dinner

- Wraps – put some protein (I love spicy black beans, but you could use cheese, meat, tofu, hummus), some leafy greens, some flavours (chilli sauce, hummus, pesto, mayo, garlic salt...) into a pita or a wrap for a more interesting sandwich

- A hearty salad (think roast veges, chunks of food, a mix of substance, taste and nutrition. Iceberg lettuce is great, but it’s not a meal!)

• Buy local. Go to your local farmers markets, keep an eye out for road side stalls, ask your neighbours and friends for any leftover produce they have or swap with your leftovers.
• Near the university, there is the Christchurch Farmers Market at Riccarton Bush on Saturday 9-12pm (all year) and Wednesday 4-7pm (part of the year), the Riccarton Market (this is not strictly a farmers market, but it has a lot of food stalls) at Riccarton Raceway (just off Yaldhurst Road) on Sunday 9-2pm. There is also the Opawa market, Lyttleton market, and a number of others around.
• Buy from local butchers. When/if you do buy meat, buy it from your local butcher. You can reduce waste (no stupid trays!) and support more locals. You can also get advice about the best way to prepare your meat, different cuts and options for free range meat. Now that you are eating less meat, buying higher quality, more sustainable meat is more affordable!
• Buy fair trade. Fair trade is a system that works with the world’s most disadvantaged to provide, amongst other things, guaranteed minimum price for products. Some of the world leaders in fair trade, Trade Aid, are based here in NZ. Look also for the fair trade logo. Coffee, chocolate, bananas, sugar and craft products are the most common fair trade products in NZ.
• Buy organic. Non-organic food is exposed to a number of harmful pesticides and fertilisers. Organic food is better for the environment, better for the farm workers, better for biodiversity and better for your health! If you can’t afford to buy all organic, why not grow your own and prioritise what products are the best to buy organic.
• Avoid big multinationals/transnational companies. Companies such as Nestle, Sara-Lee and Coke have been linked to a number of environmental and human rights atrocities, mostly in un-regulated ‘developing’ countries. Basically, their stuff is cheap, because someone (or something in the case of the environment) is paying/suffering to subsidise this cost. They also own a number of other food companies, so figuring out what is ok can be difficult. Eating unprocessed food is the best way to avoid it, but do your research and figure out what companies you are willing to buy from.
• Request your supermarket closes the source chain. Even if you are looking in your supermarket for Canterbury apples, they could have been shipped to Auckland, processed then shipped back to your local supermarket. Request your supermarket lists the city products in NZ/Aotearoa are from and ask that they get sent direct from farm to shop. FreshChoice Nelson is a great example of a supermarket that has effectively done this. They have tags with 100km on all products that are produced within 100km. Look for products that have NZ made on the label, and even better say where in NZ they are from.