Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Food Swapping

I'm a huge fan of sharing food. I love surprising my omnivore friends with delicious vegan dinner parties or going to a friend's kitchen with some utensils and ingredients and pooling our resources to make something we didn't have the equipment to make on our own. It's a great way to learn new recipes or cooking techniques and sharing and socialising is relaxing and a great way to stay happy!

It was with great joy then that I stumbled across the phenomenon of food swapping that has begun to take off in the UK. The basic premise is that you bring along some food you have gathered or prepared to swap for some things that other people have brought along.

This idea really appealed to me. I spend all year long labouring in my allotment only to have too much fresh produce to eat all at once at the end of summer. I'm also great at making vegan cakes and biscuits but don't like to bake that often because there's only me to eat it (and I've been known to eat an entire vegan cake in one sitting so it's best that they remain unmade). But this is exactly what food swapping is all about; I can bring my surplus homegrown veggies or homemade baked goods to the event and swap them for things I have no skills at growing, foraging or making. Vegan biscuits for a jar of jam, some courgettes for a loaf of bread etc etc. And, if I wanted to, I could socialise and meet new people who had a similar passion for making and growing food and reducing waste. What a great idea!

But despite the fact that there are food swaps popping up all over the UK, there were no food swaps being organised in Cambridge. So, in collaboration with Cambridge Carbon Footprint and with the help of some friends, I'm going to start organising them for Cambridge.

If you would like to find out more about food swapping you can visit the international webpage of the Food Swap Network or you can email the Cambridge (UK) Food Swap (CambridgeUKFoodSwap AT gmail.com). And don't forget to like us on Facebook to keep up to date with any swaps we are organising in the near future. We hope to have our first food swap in the next month or so to coincide with the glut from allotments and vegetable gardens.

See you then!

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