To ask vegans....

[Blaaaaaaaaah]

What you use to cook?
For background my sister-in-law is coming to stay this weekend. She is recently vegan due to environmental factors, which I’m happy to cater for.
My issue is that for my own political opinion we only use British produce, we live in an agricultural gold mine so this is honestly pretty easy and most of our food has travelled less than 10miles.
However pretty much all the vegan recipes I’ve come across use substitutes made from coconut, almond and soy oil/milks, all of which are using tons of air miles to get here.

So, if you are vegan for similar reasons please can you guide me in what to use to avoid these ingredients?

For me its a balance. I've had sleepless nights over it and had to accept that nothing is perfect.
Otherwise you'd end up eating nothing!

For milk I buy oat milk in a milk bottle from the milk man. Made from oats grown here. I'm sure they're not organic, so pesticides are used.... But the organic oat milk comes in tetrapak.

I don't tend to use meat substitutes as I don't like them. I mainly use pulses like chickpeas, beans and lentils. I've never checked where they are from. No doubt imported.

I got a fruit and veg box from Groobarbs, a few miles down the road as I wanted something local - and there were bananas in it. I'm pretty sure they weren't grown in Cheshire!

Also, a lot of soya is actually grown for cattle feed, not for direct human consumption. Do you know where your local farmer buys his feed from. UK or cheaper imports (with airmiles)?

Does your local farmer use lots of pesticides and endanger our insects especially pollinators? Would we be better buying organic stuff from further away?
Neonicotinamides (if that is what they are called) were banned in the EU but from what I've read, might not be banned here with the new environment bill. So maybe imports from the EU would be a better choice than some UK produce?

It goes on and on and does my head in!

No solution, sorry.

Vegan household here - no coconut oil in this house! we do have oat milk....

The "fashionable " recipes will use coconut oil and substitutes but you don't need to. Is Olive oil okay for you to use? Could you not use that instead of butter?
Lots of nice tray bake recipes you could do with local veg.

A nice vegetable curry with some bread on the side? You definitely don't need coconut oil or anything like that for a basic curry!

[quote Blaaaaaaaaah]@GirlWithAGuitar She is happy with all substitutes whereas I am not, this is more about accommodating both.
There’s some good ideas already. Any ideas for the sweet stuff that don’t use substitutes?[/quote]
If you're using a tin of chickpeas, you can save the liquid from the tin. That's known as aquafaba, and can be used as an egg substitute in baking, and to make things like meringues.
www.vegansociety.com/news/blog/20-amazing-things-you-can-do-aquafaba

Fruit salad

Apple and cinnamon crumble - if you're happy to swap the butter for margarine, or Stork (some versions are vegan, others not, best to check the label)

Sorbet - if you have an ice cream maker, or obviously you can buy it (most brands are ok - but do check the label)

By the way if you're looking for a mutually acceptable plant milk, PureOaty is made in Cambridgeshire from British grown oats www.glebefarmfoods.co.uk/about-us/

The British beef you're eating is very likely to have eaten as much imported food as your sil.

This!

Simple dessert options are fruit crumble, or pie with Jus Roll.
As PP mentioned, aquafaba is a decent egg substitute in baking. And very eco friendly of you've used the chickpeas in the main or starter.

Make a veggie chilli made from locally grown food, I do add beans and chopped tomatoes but they are Italian and canned so transport is slower so more sustainable. Serve with potatoes if you want to avoid rice

X-posted much with Undertones there

Brilliant links thanks peeps.

No meat here but always interesting, especially with concerns to dairy. We live in the sticks so tend to fend for ourselves wherever possible it also means we’re pretty good at seasonal eating (pumpkin currently coming out of our ears 🤣).

Are chickpeas local??? 🧐

Ok, substitute British-grown legumes for chickpeas

@Hopeisallineed

Are chickpeas local??? 🧐

Is the OP really taking it so far as to reject a tin of chickpeas because they're not British?

For what it's worth it's greener to buy tinned beans than dried ones, once you've taken into account the relative inefficiency of cooking dried beans at home tabitha-whiting.medium.com/should-you-buy-dried-or-tinned-beans-to-reduce-your-environmental-impact-319e7d8d3035

You can make most vegan foods with veg grown on the uk? Veg curries, soups, stir fry, stews, bean burgers, stuffed peppers. The list is endless, it’s a bit of an odd question tbh?

@UndertonesOfCake I don’t know but she did say this ‘ My issue is that for my own political opinion we only use British produce, we live in an agricultural gold mine so this is honestly pretty easy and most of our food has travelled less than 10miles.’

You can make most vegan foods with veg grown on the uk? Veg curries, soups, stir fry, stews, bean burgers, stuffed peppers. The list is endless, it’s a bit of an odd question tbh?

It’s a very odd question. It’s almost like the question was meant to prove vegans were ‘bad’. And the swift arrival of certain people with farming backgrounds. Interesting....Embarrassingly obvious.

Oven chips? 😁

What a bizarre question. Local produce does not equal environmentally friendly, far from it.

Meat, wherever it is produced, and by whatever means, is hugely environmentally damaging. The feed for livestock is often imported too, and producing it often involves rainforest destruction.

There are also many local options for vegan food. I get a weekly seasonal fruit and veg box from the local greengrocer, that has produce that might otherwise by wasted due to its esthetics. This forms the basis of my cooking. I don't use coconut oil either: it's not compulsory for vegans!

Lots of great recipes already posted.

I suggest looking at the comparative environmental impact of 'local' meat to imported vegan whole foods eg lentils, before taking a mistaken moral high horse here.

Good desserts could use British frozen berries (available in most supermarkets) and pastry you can make with local flour and sunflower margarine.
You could make meringue from bean or chickpea water and British sugar (google Aquafaba)

Hodmedods do a huge range of British pulses including chickpea and quinoa if you are going to be very strict.
Likewise it's very easy to make your own milk alternatives- Scottish or closer oats and water create 'oat milk'
As with everything it depends where your politics and level of energy investment lies. It's all possible with enough time and money

What are you hoping to cook?

If it's solely about milk substitutes, it is pretty easy to make your own oat milk. Alternatively Good Hemp milk is produced in Devon using mostly French hemp seeds. I have an Ethical Consumer subscription and that came out as one of the more ethical options. Although as I have coffee black, I rarely use milk substitutes at all. www.goodhemp.com/the-facts/

If you're trying to eat seasonally and locally as well as vegan, there are some good resources here:
theflexitarian.co.uk/seasonal-food/

And here (although American, so it doesn't all quite translate, but you can use imagination to substitute!) www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-food/meal-plans-by-season/

And here in chart form www.vegansociety.com/shop/charts/uk-seasonal-fruit-and-vegetable-chart

One of my favourite autumn recipes is this - it's easy and I use local squash and chestnut mushrooms. If you don't want to use beluga lentils you can use local ones (eg Hodmedods) or you can leave them out altogether, reduce the amount of liquid and use it as a base for a shepherds pie. www.forksoverknives.com/recipes/vegan-soups-stews/sage-lentil-stew-with-squash-and-mushrooms/

A roast with just the stuffing and veg always goes down well here too, especially if there's roast cabbage involved. I have home-grown sage and onions, and make my own bread, so that's as local as anyone could wish!

I avoid baking because I'm terrible at it. For a vegan dessert I would usually do crumble or stewed fruit and free-from yoghurt (tesco own brand is made from French soya beans so no air miles), baked apple or similar. Occasionally I buy the Alpro ready made custard, which is mostly French soya beans with the remainder from Canada but shipped not flown. Or fresh fruit and nuts.

Just for clarity, it isn’t even the tiniest bit true that all animals in the UK eat soya. Around 2 million tonnes of soya were imported last year, 2/3 are use in poultry production.

Leaving us with 666,000 tonnes of soya for feed - it’s not going very far with nearly ten million cows and 5 million pigs is it. A cow eats about 15/20kg of dry matter a day. Based on this the remaining soya could feed about 100,000 cows for a year. 100,000 out of 9 million.

To all the people saying that soya is grown for cattle...

We have cows. We used to use soya in their feed but no longer do. It's common knowledge in farming that soy cattle feed generally contains the parts of soya that humans can't eat. The cattle eat the husks, the waste, often it isn't actually being grown for them. Despite this, we decided to cut it out completely a few years ago and feed stuff grown in this country now. Much of it from our farm or the local area, when they are not outside.

Contrary to popular farmer bashing that seems to go on at the moment, we are constantly looking at how we can improve the way we work. We are subject to regular inspections, we have targets to meet or we will lose our contracts and we are part of larger groups who are constantly trying to be the best we can, whether it's reducing carbon footprint, welfare, improved technology or whatever. We have 'wild' areas on our farm, beehives, wooded areas, a river, loads of hedgerows and wild animals. We've had these as long as I can remember, 'wilding' is not suddenly a new idea, as the government would have everyone think.

There seems to be a message at the moment that vegan = good for the environment and as others have said upthread, that's not always true. The carbon footprint and amount of water needed for some of these foods can both be extremely high. The media seems to only see livestock as carbon emitters but forgets about the whole carbon cycle. The other point I'd make is that surely the empty shelves we've seen at times over the past 18 months should make everyone realise how important it is to produce a high percentage of food in our country. Livestock are part of that and many of them are fed solely on grass, hay, silage or grains made in the UK.

Eating locally produced food, whether plant or animal based, is surely best, not just for the environment as the OP says but also for the future of our country. By all means be a vegan, but don't spread myths about farming as there are plenty out there that are not true.

What would you usually eat?

If you Google "vegan recipes" it will probably bring some random stuff up. I'm genuinely struggling to think of a savoury recipe in which I use soya, coconut or almond milk or oil. I would ask her to bring her own milk alternative for tea etc though.

Pasta is a good and easy one of course, it's even possible to get British made tofu from British soya beans if you know where to look.

[quote Blaaaaaaaaah]@Plotato No criticism meant it just seems a lot of recipes use coconut oil and the likes instead of butters or oils?[/quote]
Use rapeseed oil. It's British and one of the healthiest to use anyway. Coconut oil is full of saturated fat.

Am veggie but would look at

Vegan lentil and veg pie

Vegan mushroom and chestnut Wellington

All can be done with your local seasonal veg.
No need to use fancy oils if that is an issue for you imo.