A new column from Otley 2030 looks at the small and simple changes we can make to reduce our carbon footprint and save money too.

Week 1: Make easy bendy veg soup

Have a look in your cupboards and search out those soft onions or sprouting potatoes. Rummage in the fridge and find the squashy tomatoes, yellowing leek, limp spring onions or bendy celery. Any veg will do, and old veg is still fine to eat when cooked as long as it’s not rotten or mouldy.

Peel, chop, remove all the bad bits and throw in a saucepan with a little oil or fat and some stock (easily made with stock cubes and boiling water), you’ll need at least enough to cover and cook all your veg. Boil for about half an hour. Then blitz with a hand blender or cook until all the veg are soft enough to squash with a potato masher. Add some seasoning and any herb you can find – if you or your family prefer soup spicy, you can add chilli or paprika, both of which can sit on the shelves for many years without losing their flavour.

If you have a small amount leftover from another meal, like a bolognese, then add it in too - the more flavour the better.

And that’s it! You’ve made a delicious soup which has cost virtually nothing. If you’ve made several days’ worth, make sure you boil it up each time before eating, and if you’ve made a huge amount then freeze half of it and defrost whenever you need a quick, healthy meal.

Why it’s worth the effort

There’s a huge amount of food wasted in Britain today, which means that resources are wasted in growing, processing, packing and transporting food which will be thrown away, causing more unnecessary waste and pollution. Did you know that every day in the UK 4.4million potatoes are wasted?

Foodstuffs in landfill are broken down by bacteria, which produce methane, which has a warming potential of 21 times that of carbon dioxide – so you can see how that quickly adds up to being a big part of the climate crisis.

About a third of all the world’s food goes to waste and according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation if food waste were a country, it would have the third biggest carbon footprint after the US and China.

When food is transported to the UK by air it becomes a major contributor to greenhouse emissions and then climate change. Sadly, about a third of our fruit and veg is also rejected for being the wrong size or shape before it even reaches the shops.

Vegetables are cheaper when they are misshapen, bought loose rather than packaged in plastic, and they’re fresher if they were grown in this country. Herbs and spices are also cheaper if bought loose from zero-waste refill shops, such as ‘Like Nana Did’ in Otley.

By buying cheaply and sustainably and by using everything you buy, you’ll save on your carbon footprint and your bank balance.

If you only make one change this week, make bendy veg soup.

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