With globalisation and a high demand for products all year round, much of the food in the UK is now imported from other countries all around the world. In ancient times, people would have eaten off the land so their diets would have been very seasonal, eating root vegetables in the cooler months and feasting on juicy fruits and vibrant berries when the weather is warmer.The same would have applied for fish and meat as some animals hibernate throughout the winter where others may disappear completely, migrating to warmer regions further south until the spring arrives. Mating and birthing seasons in the animal kingdom would also have had an enormous impact on people's seasonal diets, where produce would be almost entirely grown or hunted very locally.
Now however, with complex new methods of transport, technology and access to food that is grown or produced on the other side of the world diets are hardly seasonal at all as we are able to get any produce at any time of year just by popping down to the local supermarket. Where though does all this food come from though as we begin to think about what impact our demanding diets are having on the world as a whole.
Depending on the product, food is flying into the UK from numerous different countries such as Denmark, Colombia, Thailand, Italy, China, Canada and New Zealand with many other countries also producing produce that is then sold in the UK. Food from more than 160 countries is brought into the UK meaning that we really have developed tastes that come from every corner of the world.
Although the UK is one of the world's leading producers of meat and dairy products, we import a vast amount of the rest of our food from chocolate and coffee, to enormous quanities of fruit and vegetables that due to our very seasonal climate, cannot be grown all year round. And indeed, foods that we cannot grow here at all such as tropical fruits including pineapples, oranges and bananas all of which often make up our fruit bowls. By shopping locally at your butchers and greengrocers, you will be offered more seasonal choices as well as possibly trying things that you maybe had not considered before.
