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https://www.positive.news/society/the-campaign-to-democratise-real-bread/>
"Companions are the people we break bread with. The word is derived from the
old French compaignon, literally ‘one who breaks bread with another’, and based
on the Latin com (‘together with’) and panis (‘bread’). From Spanish and
Italian to Finnish and Russian, the word exists in many languages. Bread
connects us, materially and symbolically to each other.
The UK’s Real Bread Campaign has been sharing ways of making bread better for
us and for the planet for 15 years. Driven by a bold ambition that touches on
politics, education, public health, farming systems and food production to name
but a few, its mission starts with a clear, simple and accessible definition of
‘real bread’: bread made without chemical raising agents, so-called ‘processing
aids’ or other additives.
“I love knowing that we’re helping ever more people enjoy delicious,
nutritious, additive-free food,” says Chris Young, campaign coordinator since
2009. “I love hearing about the joy and sense of achievement people get from
making their own bread and seeing this in their smiles. I love knowing how our
work is helping people set up and run small, successful businesses. I love that
we promote actions that are better for the environment, better for local
economies and communities, better for people’s heath and – one I sometimes
forget because it is subjective – better for flavour.”
Part of the food and farming charity, Sustain, the Real Bread Campaign runs
many projects and enterprises that focus on different aspects of its vision.
The campaign lobbies the UK government to adopt its proposals for an Honest
Crust Act: to update and improve the composition, labelling and marketing
standards of bread, to give people the chance to make better-informed choices
about what they buy. In the past, Together We Rise oversaw therapeutic and
social baking initiatives; No Loaf Lost helped small bakeries reduce surplus
and waste; and Knead to Know is a manual for microbakeries.
Sourdough September is a longstanding initiative to encourage people to buy or
bake their own additive-free sourdough bread. A current project is Bake Your
Lawn, which teaches children how real bread starts in a field, not a factory:
from a handful of wheat and a square metre of soil, the guidebook supports
adults in leading kids in a hands-on-journey of discovery, from seed to
sandwich. 10,000+ children benefited from the Bake Your Lawn and Lessons in
Loaf project."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
