Ideas to get away from Christmas consumer spending and towards health, conviviality and a sustainable food system

Do something wonderful!

Laugh out loud!

£10

...And at the same time support Louth Neighbour's Kitchen, at a comedy night at The Priory Hotel in Louth.

Also live music nights to warm the cockles in the depths of winter!

Various events. Vouchers available.

Learn to cook

£25

For anyone who already loves to cook, this will be a well received gift!

For anyone who does the cooking day in and day out, a cooking class is a little time out from their own kitchen, a way to inject variety and joy into the every day.

For anyone who wants better health, cooking more from scratch is a no-brainer way to include more veg and less nonsense.

I suggest cooking class vouchers from Curry Jacks - the masters of curry and big supporters of local food - purchase from the van or email spiceyourlife@curryjacks.uk to get it posted.

Plan a garden

from £1.60

Apart form planting fruit trees, winter is the time for planning and dreaming...

Packets of seeds from the Seed Co-op

Gift Vouchers from the Seed Co-Op from £5

(Also see books, below.)

I enjoyed Huw Richard's book Grow Food for Free - you can buy it for £12.69 on Hive and support your local bookshop.

Plant a fruit tree

£15.50

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second best time is today, according to a Chinese proverb. And the good news is, it IS the season for planting fruit trees in the UK - any time from now until March.

A family activity to blow away the cobwebs!

Local trees from the East of England Orchard Project

Subscribe to a better world

Memberships & Subscriptions to last all year

A magazine from your grocer

Free online, or print edition with your veg box (starting £12:45)

Fantastic food journalism from Riverford Organic Farmers - I read the print version cover to cover every time it is delivered!

The magazine is free online - subscribe here to receive it by email, or a quarterly paper copy is free with an organic veg box. Veg boxes from £12.45

LOGO market stall

Grow Organic

£8/year

Membership of Lincolnshire Organic Gardeners Organisation gets you entry to lots of excellent events, tours, talks, seeds swaps and contact with some very knowledgable growers. Such a great community!

Recipe box

from £33/fortnight

Increase your repertoire of delicious plant based meals effortlessly - recipe box delivered to your door (Lincoln area)

Read - Learn - Change

Some books that have influenced me this year.

Local Food Ecosystems

Pay as you feel

Duncan Catchpole describes in detail how a better food system might look - and how it is being put into practice in Cambridge.

Duncan's ideas make complete sense to me, and I'm interested in how we might apply some of these ideas in Lincolnshire.

Edible Paradise

£14.40

Vera Greutnik sparks lots of ideas for beautiful, productive gardens using no-dig and permaculture principles.

Cook book

£26

What is a sustainable diet like?

Healthier, tastier and much more exciting and diverse!

Eat & Drink Lincolnshire

Support small scale local farms. They're important.

Inkpot Farm

Pasture for Life

Pasture for Life means that animals are fed ONLY on pasture - without the need to use additional land to grow feed crops or clear environmentally sensitive land across the world for feed imports. Pasture fed grazing sequesters carbon and regenerates soils, increasing biodiversity, improving animal welfare, and producing healthier meat.

Organic veg

from £25

Try a local organic veg box.

Lincolnshire Wine

Yes - wine from vineyards right here in the glorious Lincolnshire wolds!

Plastic Free & Zero Waste

Food gets put into fancy packaging and sold as "gifts."
Let's subvert the commercialisation of Christmas giving by choosing and reusing containers in a thoughtful or imaginative way.
Forage & Fill, Lincoln

Lincolnshire has an increasing number of refill shops, including:

10 Christmas gift ideas towards a better food system in Lincolnshire

Happy Christmas, with love from all of us at Lincolnshire Food Partnership! xx