Most people in England love a bowl of pasta, but did you know that you can now buy locally-grown pastas made with organic wheat, and sold in plastic-free packaging? Unless you have a medical condition, cook pasta in salted boiling water (in Italy, not using salt renames the dish ‘silly pasta!’) Then serve with your favourite sauce recipe and vegan Parmesan (conventional Parmesan is not vegetarian, as it contains calf rennet).
For recipes, read up on keeping people & pets safe in the kitchen (many ‘human foods’ are unsafe near animal friends – including salt, onion, garlic, spices & fresh dough if making homemade pasta).
plastic-free pasta from Yorkshire
The Yorkshire Pasta Company offers ‘pasta nothing like you find on supermarket shelves’. The brand is a small family firm, sold in over 450 independent shops and restaurants (even Italians rave about it!) Made in 2 days (not 2 hours) to allow flavours to develop, each piece has a rough surface to cling to sauce, and is made with locally-grown wheat (helping to support 169 small farms).
It mixes flour with cold water to produce a slow-dried pasta that is passed through bronze dies (the main brands use Teflon). It’s sold in paper packaging with metal eyelets (both easily recycled), and has a low carbon footprint, due to zero food miles. The little food waste produced is fed to happy cows!
bronze-cut spelt pasta (from Cumbria)
Northern Pasta (Cumbria) is an award-winning brand of spelt pasta that is homegrown from local crops. Spelt is not gluten-free, but an ancient relative of wheat that is easier to digest. Again the bronze-cut ensures a rough surface, to cling to your pasta sauce. Sold in plastic-free packaging, this brand is supporting local farmers, while using traditional Italian methods to create fine artisan food. Founded by a husband-and-wife, this small firm also supports regenerative farming methods to grow the spelt.
Sold in 6 shapes, unlike supermarket pastas, this brand is much easier on the tummy. Supermarket pasta is often bright yellow, due to drying at high temperatures that burns the starch. But this pasta is slow-dried to retain nutrition and digestibility. If you suffer bloating or fatigue after eating pasta, try this brand instead!