Vegan Pantry is a clever recipe book, offering 100 delicious healthy recipes, all based around 10 staple ingredients (including canned tomatoes and citrus fruits). This helps to save money and avoid food waste, and all you need to add are mostly fruits and vegetables, and a few other kitchen staples. Enjoy year-round recipes using easy-to-find cupboard staples, using common kitchen tools and easy affordable ingredients.
Before cooking, read up on food safety for people and pets.
This could become your effortless go-to book for everyday recipes like:
- Cinnamon and hazelnut granola
- Garlic mushroom sausages with creamy mash
- Creamy chickpea, sage and kale soup
- Cacio e Pepe-style butterbeans
- Cauliflower mac and cheese
- Fennel & grapefruit salad
- Date, chickpea & lemon tagine
- Pistachio, mango and coconut kulfi
Katy Beskow is a former physiotherapy student who learned to cook, while studying in London. Now back living in her native Yorkshire, she is the author of several best-selling cookbooks and often presents cooking videos for supermarkets online. She is a member of the Guild of Food Writers.
Consider shopping at fruit and vegetable markets, for good prices on seasonal produce. Overheads are less than supermarket chains, so savings can be passed onto the consumer. Be cautious of coupons and vouchers, and purchase only what you will actually use, no matter what the discount.
Tonnes of cooked rice are wasted due to overestimating volumes of uncooked rice (90g of uncooked rice will serve one person – chill unused rice in the fridge for up to 24 hours and thoroughly reheat before serving).
The Rising Price of Everyday Foods
Food poverty campaigner Jack Monroe recently launched her own Vimes Index, saying that supermarkets had used inflation as a cover to raise the prices of everyday goods (like apples) but kept existing prices for luxury goods (like champagne).
Jack was recently contacted by an elderly gentleman who had eaten a teaspoon of toothpaste for his dinner, to fool himself into thinking he had eaten something.
Tesco responded by saying their own prices are affected by rising energy prices. But this is because big supermarkets use oil from lorries (bringing foods from central distribution houses miles away (that are heated by oil) and many foods are made from factory-farmed animals (powered by fossil fuels) and palm oil (lots of oil to fly them to England from Indonesia). That’s why walkable shops that sell seasonal foods is a good idea.
The Vimes Boots Index is a warning shot to retailers who keep their £7.50 ready meals and £6 bottles of wine at the same price for a decade, while quadrupling the price of basic stock cubes and broken irregular grains of white rice. This issue isn’t going anywhere, and neither am I. Jack Monroe
The New Wave of Affordable Social Supermarkets
Company Shop offers free memberships to people on means-tested benefits who live local to one of their shops. These are basically member-only discount supermarkets that sell surplus items at greatly reduced cost. It sells food and household products, all powered by surplus or donated food, for those on the cusp of food poverty. This feeds families, while making sure good food does not go to waste.
Companies can book ‘waste walks’ where their experts will visit your site to help identify potential surplus and reduce overall waste, which could actually save you money, as you don’t have to pay landfill costs.
Local schemes like Surplus to Supper lets people fill their shopping bags with surplus food items, then pay with cash or card, or pay a donation to help keep the vans running. You get great deals and help others, and stop food waste.
Approved Food is an online supermarket that specialises in surplus or nearly out-of-date food that is safe to sell. We would not recommend certain items, but of course for daily essentials if you can’t afford to eat, it’s a good idea. The food is just near or just pas =t the ‘best before’ date, allowing them to pass on huge savings.
A Low-Cost Zero Waste Supermarket
Despite its ‘posh image’, obviously some people in Berkshire struggle financially. A great idea here is True Food Co-op, an ethically-run zero waste supermarket, where members pay a one-off £5 fee for exclusive discounts (volunteers also earn up to 15% discount off food).
The shop has a zero-waste refill station, organic alcohol and orange stickers for value basics, to help people on tight budgets. These are not ‘cheap inferior products’ but organic foods that still work out cheaper than the same brands in major supermarkets.
As members have shares in the shop, you can order in anything you like (if it comes in a pack, they’ll sell the rest in the shop).
Affordable Ready Meals (made from food waste)
Just Meals is a super idea. People in the local community have food waste delivered to them, then people cook it up into super-affordable ready meals to sell back. There are vegan options and obviously some aren’t, as they are using up food that has already been in use. So for everyone, there are affordable meals.
The meals are frozen and packed in biodegradable packaging. They can then be heated at home. They are sold at various shops in Sheffield, or ordered online and then collected from various outlets.
The meals are sold on a ‘pay what you can afford’ basis, starting from £1. To keep this fair, they ask that people who can afford more, do pay more, based on honesty. There are also gluten-free options. But as the meals are cooked from food waste on one premise, they can’t guarantee that meals are free from allergens.
You don’t get to order ‘meals’ as such. You just check your preference: vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free or any other meals. You then just get whatever they cook up.
A Pay-What-You-Can Café in London
Second Chance Café is such a nice idea. Situated in Stoke Newington (near Hackney in north west London), this non-profit community cafe is not a soup kitchen, but a small community business that lets people what they can. It then counts all the meals and pounds spent, donations given and volunteer hours worked, then publishes all the data each month, to help create a real inclusive feel in the area.
The café ticks along, thanks to a myriad of volunteers. Who between them cook, clean, wait on tables, manage and drive deliveries.
The café has served over 15,000 plant-based meals (mostly made from donated and upcycled ingredients) with a daily changing menu that usually includes soup, bread and hot drinks, plus cakes and bakes.
Pay-what-you-want cafés are swiftly taking off in England. Recently one opened up in the fairly affluent Kent town of Tunbridge Wells, serving vegetarian food donated by local shops with surplus ingredients. There are other ones springing up, from Hull to Essex.
Why Would Someone Pay What They Want?
Most people go into cafés, and hope to pay less than the menu price. And that would surely mean disaster for the cafe owners? Not so. Some very rich people are so into this idea that rather than give to charity, they go here instead. In California, one pay-as-you-go café had one customer pay $1 for a coffee – and someone paid over $100!
Obviously if cafés are run by volunteers, it helps. But most have to have a paid manager (like community shops) to stay afloat. Some like Denver’s SAME Cafe gives out free food, in exchange for regular volunteer hours.
A ‘Freezer of Love’ for Hungry People
Freezers of Love is an innovative idea from Gloucestershire (England), run by an award-winning social enterprise. If it makes you miserable that vulnerable go hungry (while big supermarkets make a fortune), be inspired by this outfit that cooks up excess food (from shops and allotments) to serve free meals to local hungry people.
Founded by two friends who shared a mutual dismay of how society is ‘doing food badly’ and leaving people unwell and lonely (in a country where a third of all food grown and made is never eaten) they decided to do something to help.
The meals are offered free or a pay-what-you-can donation, with money given used to invest in pay-what-you-want cafes and a Teenage Kitchen (one student has already found a job as a baker at a local farm cafe, proving this model is also creating stable full-time jobs).
How to Start Your Own Community Fridge
Food is more than just sustenance; it’s a means of connection, culture, and compassion. However, many people face the harsh reality of food insecurity.
Communities can make a real difference through food sharing initiatives. This article explores various ways to feed those in need, highlighting effective strategies and innovative ideas that foster community spirit.
Community Fridges is a wonderful idea from our Canadian friends, to help nourish communities that are struggling to afford good meals in so-called ‘food deserts’ (you know the areas – often one NISA or Spar shop with not much more than frozen pizza and chips or bags of crisps to eat for dinner).
We need good solutions to bring local affordable organic food back to communities, and this is just one idea that is being carried out over the ocean.
People in the community who can safely leave an unlocked fridge in the premises let the fridges be anonymously used by local people, with donations from people or food companies, to basically help themselves. There are rules on the site on how this works.
For example, you obviously have to keep food sealed and in date, and certain foods (like some meats and cheeses) are not allowed. The motto of the Community Fridge is ‘take what you need, leave what you can’ so others can benefit.
People are also asked to ensure their hands are clean (or they use gloves) when accessing the free food, and throw it away, if you see anything not good or out-of-date. New donations are placed in the back of the fridge, so the oldest food gets used first, to avoid food waste.
Toronto’s Community Fridge also accepts restaurant-prepared meals if still in date, along with other basic need items (soap, laundry powder, nappies and personal feminine care etc). One thing not allowed in the community fridge is alcohol, for obvious reasons!
Why not get together with people in your community, and come up with a similar idea? It would reduce food waste, feed hungry people and reduce the profits of the big supermarkets that get rich on the backs of providing inferior food at great expense to people on low budgets, and often wrap it in plastic packaging?
Many places worldwide are now offering community fridges, from Los Angeles to India? Let’s get the community fridge movement started in England too!
The Community Nature Network is a collective of local people coming together, to create green spaces. Two organisations involved are In Our Nature which teaches people how to grow their own food in Manchester. It also runs clothing swaps, teaches people how to mend their own clothes and has installed pill recycling boxes, so older people can bring unused medicines to send off for recycling.
In London, Windmill Lane Edible Garden grows food that locals can help themselves to. These are mostly filled with fresh herbs, but also salads, radish, broad beans and garlic. The site has ‘edible templates’ and a free guide to greening up your alleyway.
Add-On Helpers to Food Banks
We’ve all seen the wire bins in supermarkets, asking us to donate tins to food banks, to help those struggling to eat. And when people are on the poverty line, they are thankful for any food, as it’s better than nothing.
Recently, food poverty campaigner Jack Monroe talked of an old man. He told her that he was eating a little toothpaste at dinner time, to trick him into thinking he had something to eat.
One MP recently said that food bank users was due to ‘poor budgeting’. In fact, most of the time, food banks have strict rules, and you have to qualify for certain benefits, before you’re allowed to use them. No wonder some people feel shamed into not using them, when they are entitled.
Sunderland Food Bank says it’s a myth that food banks are used for food and pet food (also needed for people living in poverty) to ‘spend on tattoos and cigarettes’. If you’ve seen the price of cigarettes these days, you’d know most people with money can’t afford them, let alone those on means-tested benefits.
The main food banks in England (with local drop-off points) are:
Trussell gives out emergency food parcels for three days to those in need, and also runs a free phone helpline advising people of benefits. The other two main food banks are Fareshare and Salvation Army.
Worthing Vegan Food Bank gives out food parcels that are also (on request) gluten-free. Over half the food is made up of fresh produce ((fruits, vegetables, nuts, bread). It accepts donated long-life plant milks, tinned and sealed dried foods (rice, pasta, lentils).
Why Don’t Supermarkets Simply Charge Less?
Of course, some skeptics would argue that the major supermarkets (which have put up the price of apples proportionally more than the price of champagne) have a lot to answer for. They only put ‘special offers’ on junk food (you’ll never see special promotions on broccoli!)
If supermarkets really cared about feeding the poor, they would make less profits, by selling more ‘real food’. The best way to save money on food, is to learn to cook your own meals with everyday ingredients.
American food campaigner Michael Pollan writes that if you visit any supermarket, you’ll always see that the ‘everyday staples’ like bread and milk are at the far end of the store, with all the junk-food goods on the aisles you have to pass. He says you’ll always find expensive sugary cereals at eye level, and lowly porridge on the bottom. Have a look – he’s right.
A New Kind of Affordable Supermarket
Community Shop is a new idea that’s working well. People on means-tested benefits sign up, then get massive discounts on food, as items are surplus or ‘imperfect’ (say bendy carrots or bent tins). Its branches are already used by tens of thousands of families nationwide.
Apps like OLIO and Too Good to Go let people list leftover food (say in the fridge if going on holiday or into hospital). Then arrange for local people to come and collect it for free.
Shops, bakeries, wholesalers and cafes are all signing up to Karma Fridge, a pink vending machine that lets small business sell of unsold food at closing time. So sandwiches that would be binned, get a ‘second life’ at half price or more until midnight, then they expire. Some companies are making tens of thousands of pounds, by letting local people eat unsold food, at huge discounts.
In North America, Flashfood is similar, but this time works as an app. Users have saved thousands off their grocery bills, by purchasing food about to go out-of-date.
Food banks have good heart. But there are better ways to feed hungry people, then buying junk food in tins, to throw in a bin. This is not just not fresh, but generates yet more profits for big unethical food brands and supermarkets. Some even let you ‘buy food for others’ online, and it’s pretty certain they are not giving all the profits from bought tinned back to food bank charities.
Having said that, Jack Monroe (who used food banks when living on £10 a week for her and her toddler son) says at one time, she lived mostly on tinned food. And like during rationing times, it can be a good option, if done well. She even wrote a book of tinned recipes (many are vegan). Her recipe blog lists the price per serving of each meal. We had a quick look and found:
- Tomato and bean soup (19p)
- Salad bag pesto (9p)
- Berry bread pudding (11p)
- Salted caramel banana cake (16)
- Red lentil and mandarin curry (26p)
- Pumble (pie/crumble) at 20p
- Carrot, Cumin and Kidney Bean Burger (17p)
So you see, these meals likely cost less than the cost of a bus fare to visit the nearest food bank (and receive budget tins of stew or beans).
The Conversation wants supermarkets to practice ‘price-discounting’, rather than wait until the last minute, before bringing down prices of food that’s about to go out-of-date. For example, M & S do nice plant-based meals, but they are very expensive. If you visit near day’s end, you may find some items at half price. But an hour or so before (just hours before going out-of-date), the meal will still be full-price.
Some say that supermarkets have the added benefit of ‘donating food’ like brown spotty bananas, to make space on shelves for green/yellow bananas, which sell better. So generate more profit.
In France, it’s illegal for supermarkets to throw out unsold food. By law, they have to give all unsold produce to food banks and charities. Enough food is thrown out each year in the world, to feed every single hungry person on earth.
Volunteer Cyclists Delivering Free Food
Here’s a smashing idea from over the pond. In Toronto (Canada), The Bike Brigade is a group of around 1000 volunteer cyclists, that work with food banks to cycle free food (and pet food) to vulnerable people, who can’t get to the shops, due to disability or lack of transport. The idea began during the pandemic, and has grown ever since.
The riders are all vetted. If one falls off a bike or can’t reach the recipient, they just send a text to let the organisation know they are okay, and someone else is sent out, to make sure everyone in the community eats.
This in a city where around 1 in 5 struggle to buy food (and 31,000 households in low income brackets live more than 1km away from the nearest supermarket). The organisation also delivers medications and other essential items, for people unable to pick up themselves.
And of course for volunteers, this means non-polluting exercise, and a great way to do real good within a community, and help to empower local people against the domination of big supermarkets.
What is a Food Desert?
If you live in an urban suburb, you likely live in one. Food deserts are thought to affect millions of people in Engand, who would benefit from a service like that offered above, in Canada. Even if you don’t live in one, you know the story:
These are places where it’s mostly houses and perhaps a community centre and recreation park. And the ‘local food shop’ is a NISA or similar ‘small grocer’ that perhaps sells some frozen chips and pizza, crisps and coke – and not much else.
So if you are elderly or disabled (and have no car nor the money to spend £50 minimum a week at Tesco online), you end up in a food desert, unless there’s a community garden nearby. A study recently found that around 10% of people living in impoverished areas live in ‘food deserts’. It basically means there are no ‘proper food shops’ within walking distance.
The big supermarkets don’t set up here, they are more out-of-town where they get all the car customers. So the people who live here (especially if there is not good public transport) end up paying far higher prices for their daily essentials like bread. And it won’t be good bread at that.
It’s a bit like making poor people pay more for TV licenses or electric meters, because they don’t have the money to pay upfront or do a ‘big shop’. They can’t shop online, because the minimum spend is above what they can afford. And often people in these areas (especially older people) don’t have laptops or mobile phones anyway.
This has a knock-on effect. Because communities that live on pizza and chips (and you can’t make a lentil bolognese or salad, if local shops don’t sell lentils or lettuce) leads to obesity and other health problems like diabetes. And that means people suffer, and the NHS has more budget problems.
‘Isolated communities’ also lead to higher crime, due to a lack of community interaction. The US term of ‘placemaking’ finds that when local food comes to town, people feel more inclusive. They eat better, feel better and act better (and don’t drop litter!)
A food desert, is any area where it’s impossible to buy fresh fruits or vegetables, within a one-mile radius. Jason Diakité
The Biblical Tradition of Gleaning (free food!)
If you’ve never heard of ‘gleaning’, then you don’t know your Bible! It’s basically the ancient practice of harvesting leftover produce from the fields, then giving it to hungry people, to stop it going to waste.
Gleaning Network is not religious, but influenced by the ancient Biblical custom of ‘not reaping the corners of a field nor going over the field again after the first harvest’ to let those in need, ‘glean’ what’s left behind.
The food often comes from excess produce grown on local allotments, which are dropped off to give to those in need. Volunteers turn surplus farm produce into free meals, and once even cooked a dinner to ‘feed the 5000’. Jesus would be proud!
Linked to ‘Leftover Bread’ Beer!
If you’re familiar with the beer company Toast Brewing (that brews vegan ale using leftover bread), you’ll be pleased to know that these two organisations are linked. All profits from the beers go to Feedback Global (the food waste charity started by the founder of Toast Ale – he remains on the board, to ensure it can never be sold to Unilever!)
What Greta Thunberg is doing for the planet, Tristram Stuart is doing to cut food waste. Shocked when he found out that all the food thrown out in the world each year, could feed every single hungry person on earth.
He has a lot of influence, where his TED Talk has been viewed over a million times (see it on his site). He’s very posh (from Sussex) and has made it his mission to help all the impoverished people worldwide, who have no food, due to westerners throwing it away. Read his facts twice:
- 20% to 40% of all UK fruit and veg are rejected, even before they reach the supermarkets.
- UK households throw away enough bread and cereals, to lift 30 million hungry people out of being malnourished.
- 24% to 35% of school lunches end up in the bin.
- 40% to 60% of all fish caught in Europe are discarded.
Food Recovery Network is the worldwide movement. Many regions have dedicated gleaning networks, making it simpler than ever to join in. Just imagine spending a day in the great outdoors, helping those in need, while enjoying the fresh air. Just remember to leave some food for wildlife.
Gleaning Excess Produce in Bedfordshire
Veg Box Donation Scheme is a Christian organisation that delivers free leftover veggies in the Bedfordshire area. Food often comes from excess produce grown on local allotments, which are dropped off to those in need.
Download a free Gleaning Toolkit to start something similar in your area, to deliver excess farm food that would otherwise go to waste.