Posts tagged ‘choice’
Eating my greens
Eleanor Cooksey writes:
Early January, and it’s the time of year to be making New Year’s resolutions. After over-indulging during the festive season, it makes sense to decide to eat more healthily. And I would also like to try to be more green. However, I am not sure the two are compatible.
It might seem healthier to cook my cottage pie from scratch at home, but a study shows there are lower levels of greenhouse gas emissions involved in microwaving a ready meal version. This is because mass manufacture involves much more efficient use of resources and appliances, and being provided in portion format, is less likely to lead to wasting opened ingredients (such as that bit of mince that didn’t fit in the pan) or unconsumed cooked food (someone forgot the leftovers hidden at the back of the fridge).
Fine – so it looks like it could be better to eat ready prepared food, and many manufacturers are trying very hard to make their products healthier, for example by using oils high in polyunsaturated fats as oppose to saturated fat. However, it’s not that straightforward, as these oils need more water to clean the residues off the production lines, and I am not keen on increasing the embedded water content in what I eat.
Perhaps I would be better off to keep things simple, eat less meat, and focus on my ‘five a day‘. But who would have thought that it is greener to eat a salad with tomatoes imported from Spain than local produce needing lots of energy to heat the greenhouse, or that an English apple will have been consuming energy to stay fresh in refrigeration throughout the winter? Or that going for fish is equally challenging given the amount of research needed to ensure you are eating from truly sustainable sources?
To avoid subsisting on a diet of just Brussels sprouts, turnips and parsnips I need help. How can we cut through the complexity so we can all make good (ie healthy, green and good value) choices as a consumer?
The photograph at the top of this poast is from VegBox Recipes, and is used with thanks.
The appeal of the local
Alex Oliver writes:
I was lucky enough to present some of our current insight about trust and decision-making, especially at a local level, to a group of local government leaders earlier this month. In short, it suggests that there’s a growing public appetite for more engagement and involvement, as well as greater confidence in decision making at the local level, compared to central government.
But there are also still significant barriers to engagement faced by certain groups, including younger people. These include knowing how to get involved, which often is not obvious. (Other work we’ve done for government about this also identified that if people did get involved, they needed to believe that their actions would make a difference and their opinions would be listened to; councils still forget to tell people about the impact their involvement has had on the outcomes.)
I also looked at the area of digital service delivery. Work done by the IIPS – the Institute for Insight into Public Services, the think tank we jointly run with TNS-BMRB – shows that concerns still exist around the potential inequalities inherent in internet service delivery for older and less affluent groups, along with the need to consider the role of other digital channels including i-TV and mobile. People continue to prefer personal channels (phone and face to face) where personal information is concerned, and still expect to be offered choice. The mail is still preferred by a significant proportion of the population (around a third) for forms and payments. People who use services continue to expect multi-channel delivery, rather than being funnelled into one channel. And from a service provider’s perspective, getting the mix of user and channel right can represent a big cost saving.
And the research findings on choice and quality of service continue to be worth emphasising; all social groups, and ages, put quality above choice. And those who value choice more – typically in poorer social groups who don’t have as much choice generally – are also most worried about their ability to make the right choices.
