The film will be shown around the country and The Soil Association  are looking for volunteers to hand out information and membership leaflets. You can find out the dates and book on the official Food Inc. site

The film is promoting 10 Things You Can Do to Change Our Food System but it’s very US orientated so I thought I’d do us a UK version:

10 Things You Can Do to Change Our Food System

1. Drink fewer sweetened fizzy drinks and cut down sugar in tea & coffee
   
2. Eating in is the new going out
3. Support moves to force fast food outlets to publish calorie and fat content information on menues
4. Get soft drinks machines removed from local schools
5. Meatless Mondays – go without meat for just 1 day a week
6. Buy organic where possible, when not possible go for sustainable local food
7. Protect family farms. Find your local Farmers Market and use it. Buy organic boxes direct from farms.
8. Make a point of knowing where your food comes from. READ THE LABELS!
9. Tell the government that food safety matters to you – join the Soil Association and support their campaigns.
10. Demand job protection for farm workers and food processors, including improved protection when using pesticides and other chemicals, and decent wages.
    

In 2009 we posted 16 blog posts on the Organic boxes blog, and munched our way through about 47 organic boxes ourselves, as well as three half cases of red wine, some bread and eggs.

In 2010 we hope to continue expanding the world of organic vegetable box delivery schemes.

This is what I like to do with the sprouts

Sprouts Recipe

Wash the sprouts and cut off any damaged bits. With these top quality organic sprouts the amount cut away really should be minimal. Maybe a a piece of stalk here or there and one or two outer leaves, but there is no need to cut off every stalk or peel off all the outer dark green leaves. Try to keep as much of the organic goodness as possible.

Add to boiling unsalted water and simmer for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave for another 5 minutes, then drain, retaining the liquid for making gravy with.

Place the cooked sprouts in a shallow ovenproof dish then sprinkle roughly crushed walnut halves over the top. Add slices of blue cheese over the walnuts then put it in a hot oven or under the grill until the cheese has melted to a bubbling sauce and some of the walnuts have toasted. The sprouts should still have plenty of crunch and the special slightly bitter flavour with which they are associated is complemented by the rich cheesy nutty combination.

Whether you are having a vegetarian special or a meat based Christmas dinner, the walnut and blue cheese sprouts from the organic boxes will be a serious rival to the main item. If you are vegan however, I don’t think there is any alternative to blue cheese so I’d suggest using some toasted sesame oil and either vegetarian cheese substitute or tofu.

photo credit johnsu01 recipe by Organic Vegetable Boxes.

Canceling Your Organic Box for the Holidays

Most organic box schemes have quite straight forward ways of canceling your box for short periods.

Riverford

• You can cancel up to 4 orders in a row online through ‘my future orders’ on the web site or by contacting your local distributor.

• If you are going away for more than 4 weeks, you can either remove your regular order via the ‘my regular order’ page or contact your local distributor with the dates that you will not need deliveries. Make sure you also remove any one off orders you may have made from the ‘my future orders’ page.

• Please remember that we need two working days notice before your delivery day to amend or cancel orders. You will need to phone or email your local distributor by 5pm, or by 8pm if you go online to make the changes.

Abel and Cole

• Log in and go to My Account.
• Click on the ‘my holidays’ section.
• Enter all the dates when you don’t want a delivery – you might not want one the day before you go away, so you’ll need to include this date.
• To add dates simply click on the calendar that appears.

Farmaround

• Give them a minimum of 2 working days notice
• They will suspend deliveries for any length of time that’s convenient for you.
• You can do this using their ‘suspend order form’ on the web site or contact them by phone (If you do the latter, please remember to state the date that you want your last order to arrive and the date that you want to resume your deliveries.)

Eating Organic on Holiday in the UK

Here’s an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to make sure they eat just as healthily on holiday as they do the rest of the year.

Organic Places to Stay UK and Ireland

“This book will be an invaluable travelling companion.” – Craig Sams, Vice Chairman of the Soil Association and Founder of Green & Black’s

“Linda Moss’ wonderfully well researched and informative book will provide you with all the information you need to plan your break.” – Guy Watson Organic Farmer, Founder of Riverford Organic Vegetables

“With more and more people choosing a low carbon footprint holiday, Linda’s book is the must have guide for superb accommodation and tasty nutritious food.” – Peter Shield, Editor of Natural Choices

“A well researched guide that is a good starting point for planning a green holiday or just a weekend away. Every Household should have one.” – Laura Sevier, The Ecologist

It looks invaluable and ideal for popping in the glove compartment for trips and even days out. It doesn’t just cover organic B&Bs and hotels but also lots of places where you can eat organically or buy organic supplies in your chosen area.

You can buy it on Amazon here: Organic Places to Stay UK and Ireland

My organic box comes full of lovely, fresh organic vegetables but often I’m out when it arrives.
The front of my house gets the afternoon sun and this is bad news for my veggies! Even if I had a fairly shady spot on those sultry hot London days we sometimes get I could still have a problem.
Riverford have done some interesting work on the problem and spent a considerable amount of time last year experimenting with solutions. They even got Exeter Uni involved to see what percentage of the year temperatures might be a problem for the shelf life of the various vegetables.

How Do You Keep Your Organic Box Cool?

Riverford have come up with a couple of interesting solutions. They tried all sorts of methods but the two best (short of having a hole in the ground to pop the box in!) were using an ‘eco-cool blanket’ or building a rather charming cold store cupboard/planter.

The Eco Cool Blanket

This is a wonderfully hitech solution. You buy a purpose made cover which keeps your organic boxes up to 5°C cooler and keeps the box dry if the problem is summer rain rather than blazing sunshine.
You pop the blanket inside your previous week’s box which you are returning and your delivery driver covers your new box with it.
The eco-cool blanket is elasticated,fits even the largest box, looks very much like the sort of thing people wrap themselves in at the end of the marathon and costs £4.25

Eco-Cool Food Safe

This is a much more attractive solution but costs quite a lot more. Riverford says:

a wooden safe that encases your veg box in a layer of compost and soil, ensuring that any produce put inside stays up to 10 degrees cooler than if just left on a doorstep.

Not only that but it looks really attractive once it’s filled with plants:

How does it work?
1. The safe has a high thermal capacity and captures the cool of the night to preserve your veg through the day
2. Water evaporating from it gives an extra cooling effect, like putting a damp towel over a barrel of beer
3. When filled with soil and compost and locked, it’s so heavy that no-one can make off with your veg box while you’re out

The Eco-Cool Food Safe comes in 3 sizes, is delivered in a flat pack and costs between £69 and £74.

Low Tech Solutions to Hot Organic Boxes

Much though I like the Eco-Cool Food Safe I’m an old hippy at heart and that food safe looks pretty easy to copy. What I’m thinking is two wine crates for the sides and a wooden shelf for the top. Pop a window box planter (wooden) on top, fill with soil and plants. An old cupboard door could be added and the whole lot painted with a chalky mix of emulsion and water to give a shabby chic white or maybe a chippy pale blue. (This might just be my Shabby Chic obsession talking!) Stand it against a wall, ideally  somewhere that gets a bit of shade and your organic boxes are going to stay nice and cool on the hottest day (or dry when it does the other thing!)

It would be a little taller than the smallest bought one but that should make it easier to get your organic boxes out again.

The opposite happened to me though. I thought I’d been efficient and cancelled my regular vegetable box for the week I was away recently, and when I got back the next week’s box of vegetables arrived exactly when it was suppose to, but the week after that I was left without. So make sure you understand the difference between a future order and a recurring order before you cancel organic boxes.

Supermarkets now sell more than 70 per cent of organic produce in the UK — but, having done well in the organic boom, they are now bearing the brunt of the decline. According to Soil Association surveys, it is “barcode” sales of organic that are falling. Farmers’ markets, farm shops and box schemes are still all doing OK.

In their monthly food awards, the Observer newspaper gave the Riverford Field Kitchen the title “Best Ethical Restaurant. Last week Jane Baxter and Sam Miller, who run the Riverford Field Kitchen, were presented with this prestigious award, a fine achievement given some notable contenders.

Guy Watson of Riverford writes in Farm news:

I like to think that we won because, as well as serving the most fantastic and affordable food, mostly grown on the farm, we are the real thing; for 25 years we have been doing what we do, in the belief that great food and sane farming can withstand the ebb and flow of food fashions. Having spent the last few days in London I took the opportunity to look at a few markets, greengrocers and box schemes. It was disappointing to see how many were responding to the recession by trading down to selling uncertified “as good as organic” produce, often with packaging and vans still implying fully organic produce. Everything we sell is certified organic; we keep it affordable by growing ourselves and working closely with our co-op.

Congratulations to Riverford Organic Vegetables, who also happen to be our own suppliers of top quality organic boxes all through the winter spring gap.

Ethical Superstore have recently introduced a system to provide a small range of local organic veg box schemes as a trial, with an additional national vegetable delivery scheme to cover most of the remaining areas of the mainland UK.

We at Organic Boxes blog would be interested to hear from customers who tried this method, whether by registering for a regular organic vegetable box scheme or ordering a one off hamper.

Special Christmas Organic Boxes

Abel and Cole do special Christmas Day organic boxes. These have all the vegetables you need for up to 6 people for the big day itself and should be ordered in addition to your normal vegetable box.

You can also order your turkey or goose and various other joints of meat and all the trimmings to be delivered in time for the big day. You can even get a side of organic salmon – yum! The meat and fish come in special cool boxes with ice packs. The contents are guaranteed to keep fresh uncooked till Boxing Day if popped in a fridge. You can also freeze stuff if you need to keep it a bit longer.

Then of course there are all the extras, like organic Christmas puddings, mince pies, there’s even a gluten free Christmas cake from the Village Bakery at Melmerby (I’ve had one of those before and they are yummy!)

Abel and Cole also do a special Christmas wine case. This gives you six bottles which are good selection of organic wines specially chosen to compliment traditional Christmas food.

Dates for ordering organic boxes

Ordering early is a great idea. If you know you are going to want an organic Christmas it is much easier to sort it out as soon as you can.

Abel and Cole are accepting Christmas orders already and their site warns that there might be limited supplies of some things. This means it is even more important to get your order in soon. They say:

The final day for placing, amending and canceling Christmas orders is approximately 17th December

Take the stress out of Christmas – order it online!

I think using an organic boxes delivery scheme in this way is ideal for taking the stress out of the Christmas preparations. I still cringe at the horrors of trying to find organic food in the supermarkets in the holiday season. It’s not easy at the best of times but somehow everyone is so stressed the supermarkets become nightmarish places, with limited supplies and mile long queues.

How much stress would it save you to find the whole lot delivered to your door? No danger of forgetting the sprouts, or some other vital ingredient.

Bliss- Christmas just lands on your doorstep like your normal organic boxes!