Local food in the UK?

[thegreenjudy]

I would really like to buy more local food - but obviously a lot of the local food you get from farm shops consist of animal products.

I really like nuts, tofu and beans but haven't been able to find a product from a non-UK source (clearspot tofu is being produced in the UK but don't think their soya beans come from the UK).
I also want to move from soya milk to oat milk which is at least a UK product. Rice is also a food I won't be able to get from a local source. Veg and Fruit isn't a problem. Am I being too restrictive if I get my food mostly from a local source? All the local/UK sourced vegan foods I can think about are:

Potatoes
Vegetables
some Fruit
Oat milk

Not sure if there are certain nuts that grow in the UK? We have a little organic/vegan shop across the road and they sell brown rice, legumes etc but 95% (apart from the grains) are not locally grown but importet..I think it kind of defeats the object of being an eco/vegan person - I know some would disagree with me and say that I already to a lot more than the average omnivore and that a vegan diet in general is more sustainable...but I like going the extra mile I want to start growing some things myself as soon as we move but if anyone has tips for local foods that are vegan friendly, please let me know

[thegreenjudy]

Just noticed that my oat milk is from Sweden and my nutritional yeast from Estonia...you can't win :-(

[harpy]

I agree it's a problem - if you just lived on the stuff that was grown in England (and without ecologically problematic methods such as artificial heating) your diet would be quite limited most of the year. So I think as usual it's a question of doing the best you can.

Vegetables usually represent quite a large proportion of a vegan diet, so if you can buy or grow most of those locally I reckon you aren't doing too badly. I agree grains are hard to find locally though there are some like spelt and barley that are grown in the UK. Legumes people seem to be able to grow quite well here; I have even heard about people growing chickpeas and lentils. Rightly or wrongly I don't feel so badly about buying imports of those as they don't need to be airfreighted. Same for dried fruit.

We have a weekly veg box which is mostly supposed to be from East Anglia I think, although some of the fruit isn't (unless they've started growing oranges and bananas in East Anglia :/) That salves my conscience to some extent. It does involve quite a lot of roots and brassicas in winter!

[Argonaut]

My first post as I have just joined. Being a vegan doesn't mean that you have to source all your food locally or even nationally, rice and lentils being obvious examples. Britain has long been a trading nation (or three trading nations) and if we had to depend solely on what was available on this island we'd soon starve, especially bearing in mind that the population level is now about 20 million plus more than it was during the Second World War when this 'tight little island' was dependent on the Atlantic food convoys from North America as much as it was on 'digging for victory'. Fruit and veg as you say isn't a problem, up to a point. Finding apples and pears generally is generally not that much of a problem and spuds aren't either, within season. If they have to be 'organic' then that may well be more difficult. I've seen 'organic' apples from New Zealand, Chile and the USA on sale in this country which sort-of defeats the object of the exercise; I'd rather buy 'inorganic' ones - is there such a thing as an inorganic apple? - from Kent, although it's still a fair way from the Midlands where I live.