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Self -sufficiency

B3B3 Posts: 27,505
in The potting shed
Does anyone know what foodstuffs we are self-sufficient in?
 I'm assuming potatoes, even though we are partial to Cyprus spuds betimes.
Maybe apples if we were more interested in taste than aesthetics.
I assume we have enough disused mines to satisfy the need for mushrooms.

In London. Keen but lazy.
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  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    You might get a bit bored with potatoes B3.

    Have a read of this - https://www.countryfile.com/news/can-the-uk-feed-itself-after-brexit/ 
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • HelixHelix Posts: 631
    I believe that part of the issue is that the our tastes are narrow, so for example we could be self sufficient in meat if we ate all of it - but we export a lots of the bits and import the more expensive cuts.   If we cook our own potatoes then fine, but we insist on eating processed potatoes that we import.  

    Milk and flour are ok, but fruit and veg would need a sea change in taste.  Sugar we’d have to swap to sugar beet rather than sugar from sugar cane.  So possible, but hard! 
  • wild edgeswild edges Posts: 10,497
    pansyface said:
    As for the idea of The Good Life style of self sufficiency, I tried it in my 20s.  Between the pigeons, the slugs, the rabbits, the wasps, the rot and the weather, we were lucky to have anything to eat at all most days.

    I can get behind the rabbits and pigeons but you're on your own eating slugs and wasps :# 
    If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
  • Joyce21Joyce21 Posts: 15,489
    "So much of the problem about self sufficiency arises from our expectations."

    Rationing was in force when I was a child.  We ate fruit and vegetables according to the season and got a tangerine as a treat at Christmas. A chicken was for Christmas and eggs were preserved in isinglass. 
    SW Scotland
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    It sounds as if ,for a while at least, some foods that we take for granted or have even become bored with may come treats.
    When you consider that some plant growers were unwilling this year to export to the UK this year, it's a worry that some food exporters will prefer to sell their product elsewhere rather than risk them rotting  at our ports. We will then be at the mercy of whatever country wants to offload produce that they were unable to sell elsewhere.
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • Joyce21Joyce21 Posts: 15,489
    It was weird stuff Pansy. A form of collagen.  The barrel with the eggs was kept under the stairs.
     Luckily the salted herring was bought from a barrel outside the grocer's
    SW Scotland
  • Allotment BoyAllotment Boy Posts: 6,774
    I remember my parents using Isinglass to store a glut of eggs, when the valley where my uncle had his smallholding had suspected foul pest & he could not sell his eggs for a while. 
    On self sufficiency yes it's much harder than the TV programs would have you believe, mind you @pansyface I am growing sweet peppers myself now, & I have lemon trees in pots on the patio now we have a Mediterranean climate here in the south. 
    AB Still learning

  • fidgetbonesfidgetbones Posts: 17,618
    Isinglass is made from fish stomachs.  (Not whales which are mammals)
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    The thing is, if there are shortages of 'exotic' vegetables, there will be greater demand for the local produce which will no longer be sufficient for our needs.
    In London. Keen but lazy.
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