Eating out is a luxury. And, as with many luxuries, it can often be easy to forget ethical concerns when you’re enjoying them: I’ve been known to nibble on a bit of foie gras occasionally, despite knowing all the many reasons why I shouldn’t. But does that mean we should totally ignore all the noble ideals we would practice in day to day life? I think there are some simple steps we can all take when eating out to ensure the world, at least, isn’t a worse place.
That said, many of the main concerns of the sustainable food movement (how do we feed a growing world population with limited agricultural land, for example) simply aren’t relevant here: we are never going to be able to feed the world in the same way as we eat out, and we shouldn’t try to. What we’re looking for here aren’t solutions to world hunger, but working towards ensuring that our children might have many of the same options when they’re having a first date, a working lunch, or a family celebration in 20 or 30 years time.
First, you can eat seasonally. There’s one restaurant in Oxford which, in midwinter, claimed to promote “local, seasonal food” whilst serving a tomato and mozzarella salad. Luckily for us, many Oxford chefs are far more imaginative; especially in the depths of winter, what a chef can do with yet another bloody parsnip can be significantly more exciting than anything we might come up with in the confines of our own kitchen! Eating food which can be grown in the UK during its natural season reduces the amount of greenhouse gases emitted as a result of its production, whether that’s as part of the growing process itself or as a result of getting it onto your plate. It also supports the UK farming industry to keep producing great food - and if we don’t eat it now, who knows if it will still be grown in a generation’s time?
Second, try the vegetarian option occasionally! The days of vegetable lasagne and mushroom risotto are long gone, and lots of Oxford restaurants are serving vegetarian dishes as exciting - or even more exciting - than their meat or fish options. Check out <a href=”http://www.bittenoxford.co.uk/best-for-vegetarians.html”>the Bitten guide to Oxford’s best restaurants for vegetarians</a> for inspiration, and let us know if you find any particularly good dishes elsewhere. Producing a chunk of meat to sit on your plate uses far, far more of the world’s resources, and releases far more greenhouse gases, than producing the equivalent amount of vegetables.
If you can’t face a meal out without meat, then try some of the more unusual cuts on the menu. Bavette steak is fantastically tasty and just as tender as any other when it’s well cooked, and, let’s face it, the chances of that happening in a professional kitchen are much higher than when you’re at home! Restaurants love these cuts because they’re cheaper to buy (everyone wants fillet, so it’s expensive) and therefore represent more profit; you should love them because they ensure that less of an animal - and therefore less of the resources that went into its production - is wasted. For the truly adventurous, get to one of Oxford’s fab Chinese restaurants and order some offal. Britain is exporting pig offal to China at the moment, at vast environmental impact. Keep it here and let us eat it!
Third, when choosing fish look for varieties which aren’t currently in danger of becoming extinct in the wild. That might mean going for things like hake or pollock which are all still plentiful in the wild, or it might mean choosing farmed fish like salmon (although it’s worth noting that many fish farms have an appalling impact on the environment and the fish they produce, so do research, ask the restaurant lots of questions, and if you’re not happy choose something else). Choosing fish to eat can be one of the most complex areas out there, but even some small actions, like not having the cod loin, can make a massive impact.
When you read those stats about food waste (what’s the latest amount we throw away? A third?) it’s easy to assume that that waste takes place in our own houses. But massive amounts of food get wasted in restaurants, too, and especially at the end of the process. Who hasn’t had just a few nibbles from the bread basket, or pushed an unwanted salad garnish to the edge of the plate? Just as often, I find I can’t quite finish the portion of food I’ve been served (I’m only little!). When that happens, just ask to take it away - and hey presto, a free lunch tomorrow. Fantastic new scheme Too Good To Waste has just launched in Oxfordshire, and although only a few restaurants are taking part in the formal scheme, the more people ask to take away leftovers the more restaurants will join in!
Finally, sustainability isn’t just about making sure future generations enjoy the same food as we do - it can also be about sustaining the environment around them. Oxford has so much beautiful countryside just outside it, and that’s partly thanks to the wonderful range of local farmers we have. If you want to see that gorgeous patchwork of grass, wheat, and green veg in the future, then we need to support local farmers now. So when you see a local farm named on a menu, choose that dish; if no local suppliers are named, ask the restaurant why it’s not supporting them.
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