PledgeBank Everywhere
I’ll do it, but only if you’ll help

Pledge “eatthechange”

"I will endeavour to eat entirely local, organic, wild and plastic-free food or solely local or organic, wild or a combination of such foods for a whole week but only if 50 other people will do the same."

— EAT THE CHANGE (contact)

Deadline to sign up by: 14^th September 2008
132 people signed up (82 over target)

Country: United Kingdom

More details
Join us for a week of eating only local organic food, free from plastic packaging to highlight to government that they need to act now to reform our food system.

Most of us would love to eat more locally grown food that has been grown in ways that are good for both our health and the environment. But how many of us feel we could actually do it with our current globalised and industrialised food system? Well three locavores*, all with their different takes on local food, have decided to do just that and are asking you to join them for a week!

Between Saturday 6 and Sunday 21 September, during Organic Food Fortnight and when food is at its most abundant in the UK, we ask you, for one week, to only eat food from a selection of the following sources:

- Organically grown UK food without plastic packaging – if it is organically grown on British soil, it qualifies, but obviously the more local the better. Plastic packaging is out.

- Foraged food – food growing wild and abundantly all over the UK – free rich pickings!

- Self-grown food – any food you, your friends or family have grown.

Three cities - Bristol, London and Brighton - have already signed up, with towns across the UK expected to follow suit in the coming months.

Why Eat the Change?

Food has the largest household carbon footprint and is responsible for a third of Climate Change. What’s more the NHS spends £6 billion a year on diet-related ill health. By joining us on this action, not only will you be reducing your carbon footprint for a full week, it will also demonstrate the will of the British public to eat sustainably grown food, and force our decision makers to sit up and make the policy changes necessary to make it possible to eat sustainably. Demonstrating our commitment to local, organic food, free from plastic packaging is vital in light of the Government's recently released food strategy that focuses on technical fixes to our global food system, rather than taking action to enable food to be grown naturally within our local communities.

Advice and support on sourcing food will be given throughout, and all participants will be encouraged to keep a diary of their experiences over the week on our website, not only to share experiences, ideas and advice, but to highlight to policy makers how difficult it is to do something which should be easy – to live off food from your own soil.

The three locavores spearheading the campaign are Fergus Drennan, Mark Boyle and Beth Tilston.

Canterbury’s Fergus Drennan, better known as Fergus the Forager (htp://www.wildmanwildfood.com) has decided to live completely off foraged foods for a whole year. Whilst Mark Boyle (http://www.justfortheloveofit.org) 200 miles west in Bristol, has vowed to undertake a ‘transition experiment’, living without oil for a year and eating only organically grown UK food that doesn’t contain plastic packaging.
And if that wasn’t enough, Beth Tilston (http://www.betheatslocal.org/) will be seeing if she can survive off food within a 100 mile radius of her home in Brighton.

*a person who attempt to eat only foods grown locally

Comments on this pledge

• Hi Guys, good on you, and good luck with raising awareness.
  
  I've gone a slightly different way, but I expect to keep it up indefinately because it's win-win. I've stopped eating animal products because it's healthier and much less environmental impact, and I eat organic and as little packaged as I can find, but I think some trade outside the area will be sustainable - after all that pre-dated oil.
  
  I'm sure many who take the pledge will be vegan anyway, but for those who are buying 'local' meat, milk and eggs do remember to make sure the animals did not eat imported fodder! Since the animal would eat many times its weight in food that would defeat the object! And pursuing that line will help to raise awareness of a much bigger problem I think.
  jules, 3 months ago. Abusive? Report it!
• Here in Glastonbury we have a chicken co-op (and a chicken coop too!) in my back garden. Six local households share the care... and the eggs. We have fun and the eggs are fantastic. Food steps, not foodmiles!
  Michou Godfrey, 3 months ago. Abusive? Report it!
• Found this fairly easy, have been lucky enough to be able to get our own vs out of the garden. Made our own bread, used the flour I already had in the cupboard, don't know if that is cheating. Local farmers market supplied eggs, butter and cheese.
  Margaret Hall, 2 months ago. Abusive? Report it!