Food

the most important (and controversial) bit

How to make food for a large group: During the Biketour you will be responsible for preparing food for the group. Not many people have experience in dealing with food for such a large group so no-one is going to expect you to be an expert, but you will be expected to have a go. Whatever you make, not everyone will like it - it will be too spicy for someone, too salty for someone else, too garlicky for someone else etc, but the point of taking turns to make dinner is that you get to eat what you like for one day and people who like something different can cook the next day. When preparing food for the Biketour, there are six main things to think about:

Quantity: There is no firm rule for quantities of food per person, so it's better to ask someone more experienced.; In the evenings it is better to have too much than too little, as the leftovers can be eaten for breakfast, but on at least one occasion this has become a little extreme.

If we have food left over from breakfast or lunch it can be difficult or impossible to carry, so please don't buy too many foods which can't be carried, such as dairy products, or which might spill in the trailer, such as honey.

Economics: There will be a limited budget for food so please try to stick to it. There are a few guidelines to help with this:

Don't buy tinned food if a dry version is available. Beans can be soaked in plastic bottles whilst they are being carried in the trailer, which saves on money and packaging.
Avoid exotic and out-of-season fruit and vegetables.
Less processed food is generally cheaper (and healthier).
Try to buy more filling food rather than treats which people can buy themselves.

Don't buy anything packaged if an unpackaged version is available
Buy glass bottles (preferably returnable) rather than plastic and try to avoid tetra-paks altogether as they can't be recycled.
You can empty the contents of returnable bottles into your own water container and return the bottle straight away.
Paper packaging is better than plastic because it biodegrades.
Try to avoid getting plastic bags with your shopping.

Food miles/local economy: When making your favourite recipes, be flexible about the ingredients and try substituting more local ingredients than you usually use. Try to support the local economy by buying directly from producers or from small shops and markets. Avoid supermarkets if at all possible - these put smaller shops and markets out of business and cannot buy from small local producers because they need to deal in huge quantities of food to keep their costs low. They also sell tasteless fruit and vegetables because they are bred to be big and shiny, not to taste good. For more on the problems of supermarkets, see the 'food & agriculture' research of http://www.corporatewatch.org.

Ethics: All meals on Biketour should be vegetarian with a vegan option of equivalent nutritional value, and other dietary requirements should be taken into account depending on the participants. Vegans don't eat meat, fish, eggs, ham, milk, cream, cheese, or yoghurt, and most eat no honey. In certain products it is necessary to look out for less obvious ingredients such as whey powder eg. in vegetable margarine. For breakfast, as long as there are some vegetables or fruits and vegan spreads (such as jam, peanut butter, tahini, vegetable margarine, some mustard) everything should be fine. When there is a limited selection of vegan food in any meal, please make sure the vegans get enough before helping yourself to it. This also goes for meal-times in general - please make sure there is enough for everyone before taking a large portion or seconds for yourself.