2017 was a strange year for me. In many ways, it was an incredible year. I changed a lot, my confidence grew, and I learnt more about myself. I had new and exciting experiences; it was my first year in Manchester, I lived with one of my best friends, progressed a lot in my career and joined the National Trust. There were also hard times; work was never easy, I had a tough break-up from an otherwise fantastic relationship, amongst other personal struggles. All in all, though, 2017 has been a good year for me.
However, despite the personal highs vastly outweighing my negatives, I want to take 2018 as a fresh start. I have a new job and have some holidays on the cards. My wonderful flatmate, Emily and I also given ourselves a challenge for this year. Our resolution is to, by the end of the year, be more ethical and generous people than we are today. We’re making 2018 our ‘Year of Ethical Living’, and want to share as much of it as possible on our blogs. I have a few ideas, as does Emily, which I’m sure you’ll see as the year goes on; but my first one begins this Wednesday, and I’m calling it my “Ethical Cookbook”.
For most of my life, meat has been a typical, dare I say an essential part of my diet. I LOVE the texture and taste, it’s so cheap you can have it for almost every meal, and it is everywhere. You’d be forgiven for thinking that this has always been the case, but it has not. When we (humans) first appeared on this planet and for around about 90% of human history, we were hunter-gatherers. We survived on whatever we could find, and our food sources were limited to what was available in our immediate surroundings. Which meant a lot of fruit, berries and grain, and, very occasionally, if we got lucky, some meat. For the last 200,000 years, we have been steadily increasing our meat consumption. In the previous century, we saw meat go from being an expensive treat, you got once a month, to the point where today, I can order a cheeseburger, made from a cow that probably never saw real daylight, from my sofa. And then have an underpaid delivery person cycle one minute around the corner to my flat, walk up four flights of stairs, and give it to me at my door.
On the one hand, it is so convenient, on the other, it’s hard to be less ethical.
So I’m making 2018 my year of ethical eating, I’m forcing myself to cook one, new, ethical meal every week and share the recipe on here. Ethical means I’ll do my best to make sure every ingredient used, is sourced and packaged sustainably. I’ll be buying most of my vegetables from local organic sources; I’ll also find other products to replace meat and dairy. (I’m not a vegan, by any stretch of the word, but I want to make a conscious effort to reduce the amount of meat and animal products I consume). I’m also by no means a chef, so please don’t expect anything too fancy. I’m just trying to make tasty, ethically sourced food as simply as possible.
So welcome to Gordon’s Ethical Cookbook, I look forward to sharing the recipes with you, and to seeing what you think in the comments!