How Sustainable is your Christmas Dinner?

We are probably all aware how unsustainable a "Typical" Christmas is and I've seen plenty of posts on social media begging us to cut back on how much we buy, suggesting eco-friendly wrapping ideas,  how to make natural decorations and whether to have a real or fake tree etc.  But what about your Christmas Dinner? How sustainable ... or not .. is that?  A Daily Mail article from 2009 suggested that our Christmas meal could have travelled nearly 90,000 miles before it got to your plate ... and that's just one aspect to consider.

For a meal to be sustainable we need to consider many factors - does it include meat and if so how was it raised and where, how far have all the ingredients travelled (food miles), how processed is it and how much packaging did it involve? Are the ingredients fair trade or organic and does any part of it contain palm oil? Is it from local producers or a big multi-national? It's a lot so I thought I'd try and break down our main course and see if it is "sustainable".

Our Christmas Dinner main course:

• Stuffed turkey roll - a turkey breast stuffed with pork mince, apples, chestnuts, herbs rolled in streaky bacon.
• Roast potatoes
• Brussels, baked red cabbage, roast pumpkin, carrots and parsnips
• Yorkshire puddings  
• Redcurrant jelly
• Gravy
• Wine 

Stuffed Turkey Roll

Turkey and pork

This will no doubt raise a few eye brows for those advocating we all turn vegan.  Adopting a vegan diet does have huge advantages for the planet but it is quite possible to eat some meat sustainably. Overall we have cut back how much meat we eat and have vegetarian every other day.  What meat we do eat is our own so both the turkey and the pork are from our own free range animals that we raise on our smallholding.  The turkeys graze grass and eat wheat grown on the neighbouring farm which is delivered in bulk in reusable paper sacks. The pigs graze grass, eat fallen apples, weeds from the garden etc and are fed locally grown beetroot pulp/barley in the winter plus a small amount of pig food that may be less local.  All the bought feed comes in 25kgs paper sacks that I reuse or give to the farmer who sells me the wheat.  I do use plastic bags to freeze the meat but I wash the bags out and reuse them many times.  The manure from both the turkeys and the pigs is used to fertilise my veg garden thus reducing the need for commercially bought artificial fertilisers.

Apples 

Our apple harvest was poor this year so we have none in store but we do have apples given to us by friends and will use these. No packaging, probably organically grown, very few food miles.

Chestnuts

Tinned and grown in France. The tin is easily recyclable but until I open them I will not know if is has a plastic inner lining.

Herbs 

Our own. No packaging and zero food miles. Organic.

Streaky bacon

We don't make our own bacon so this will be bought but from a local butcher who makes bacon from free range pigs. It is in the UK but is being brought over my a family member who is travelling by ferry.

Potatoes and vegetables (except carrots and parsnips)

These are all home grown and organic with zero food miles and no packaging.

Carrots

I have finished my home grown carrots so these will be bought ones. 2 friends and myself bought a huge net of carrot seconds at the market and shared them out between us. I forgot to weight the bag but suspect it was 15Kgs. Yes, the net was plastic but there was proportionally less than plastic packaging than buying in smaller packaged quantities although more than buying them loose.  On the other hand it cannot be recycled but I am wondering if I can make it into a plate scrubber.  More importantly, though, the carrots were seconds that would not have been accepted by supermarkets and could have been wasted had they not been sold like this.

Parsnips

I have no home grown parsnips this year so will buy loose local ones from the market.

Yorkshire Puddings

Home made using our own eggs, milk I buy direct from the neighbouring farm in reusable glass bottles and flour in a paper bag.

Redcurrant jelly

Made from my home grown redcurrants with sugar from a paper bag. I do not know if the sugar is made from sugar beet or sugar cane, the latter having higher food miles.

Gravy

This will be made from scratch using home made turkey stock, cornflour (in a cardboard box), wine and home-made redcurrant jelly.

Wine

We are not in a wine region but we will buy French wine and hope it has a real cork - sadly far too many bottles of wine now have a plastic cork. The bottles will be recycled.

Our Table

We will use the crockery and cutlery we already have and will not buy new or Christmas themed items.  Our napkins were given to us second hand at least 12 years ago.  We will make a central decoration from garden greenery although any candles are likely to be petroleum based. My sister in law is making plastic free crackers.

The Verdict - What do you think?  How sustainable is our Christmas meal?

It is scary when you realise how much is involved in trying to eat sustainably?  Vegans and vegetarians will no doubt consider this meal very unsustainable due to the meat but I would always question all aspects of a meat free mile.  How far have the ingredients travelled, what packaging and processing has been involved, is it fair trade or organic?  I will therefore leave you to decide how sustainable you think our meal is.

What marks out of 10 would you give this main course for sustainability?