Gizzi Erskine: My Sustainable Life - ‘The most eco-friendly choice I made this year was to keep eating meat’

The British cook and TV presenter tells Olivia Petter how sustainability influences her daily life

(Gousto)

The Independent’s My Sustainable Life is a Q&A series in which famous faces reveal their personal approach to the climate crisis

This week, for My Sustainable Life, we hear from British cook and TV presenter Gizzi Erskine

Previous guests on My Sustainable Life include model Lily Cole and musician Professor Green.

Erskine has partnered with recipe box company Gousto for its Cookstarter campaign, which supports waste-free meals with recipes created in collaboration with independent restaurants across the UK.

Here she explains why we need to change the way we think about meat, how being by the sea makes her feel in touch with nature, and why she can’t let go of her tuna sashimi habit.

The most sustainable decision I made in the past year was...

To keep eating meat. Understanding that meat is an essential part of restoring the world’s soil and trying to get our vegetables grown within the regenerative farming space is going to be one of the most ground-breaking moves anyone can make.

It’s hard, though. There’s almost 100 years of complexities to untangle to get there, but we do now know that while a “more” plant-based future is necessary, rearing animals as part of the farming system is imperative for healthy soil.

The message now is “what is your food grown in or on?” If people are plant-based for the environment, I encourage them to look into whether their vegetables are part of the increasingly problematic, single-crop-rotation system, that’s decimating the world as quickly as intensively reared animals.

My least sustainable guilty habit is...

It’s really bad. I love tuna sashimi from expensive Japanese restaurants. I do allow myself it once every few months.

This is a huge improvement as I would eat sushi weekly and have tins of tuna for salads and my cats pretty much daily until a few years ago.

If I ruled the world, I would make it more sustainable by...

Getting people to rear, produce and prepare their own meat. To look an animal in the face and know its fate is hideous.

I think we need to have more value in our approach to meat and grow our understanding of why we consume it and why it’s part of the system.

When I want to feel in touch with the natural world I...

Am by the sea. The sea on a sunny day is my sedative for my soul. One day I wish to live by the sea.

If I could invent one thing that would make my life more sustainable it would be...

Something that took the labels off packaging and separated all my recycling.

My sustainability hero is...

The one man who got me into this movement, and who is a constant source of support and information to me, is Matt Chatfeild from “Cull Yaw” and “The Cornwall Project”. I met Matt when I was working in restaurants over 15 years ago; he was supplying me incredible fish that was line caught and straight from the boats in Cornwall.

He is doing some of the coolest farming, where his sheep are given the most exquisite retirement in the deepest, richest woodland, where they are then released to pasture. They are contributing to carbon positive soil, as well as producing some of the most delicious and healthy meat I’ve ever eaten.

The one thing everyone should watch or read about the climate crisis is...

When I wrote Restore, I was knee deep in so much literature about the regenerative farming movement, veganism and agricultural science. While I actually have a pretty solid brain for science, there’s so much information to process, even with the focus just being on food.

The one book that really played a huge part in it for me was The Soil Will Save Us, by Kritin Ohlson and The Holistic Management by the don of regenerative agriculture, Alan Savoury. Silvopasture, by Steve Gabriel is also an essential read.

These all sit within agriculture and naturally cross over into foods, but all the key writers are international and with so many variants within our own terrains and governments, it means different things for different countries.

My favourite vegan or vegetarian restaurant is...

There is a pop-up restaurant, called Plates, that my good friend Kirk and his sister Keeley Haworth run in Hackney. Like me, they’re not vegan but believe in a regenerative plant-based future where we eat more plants from fertile soil that’s had animals grazing as part of the eco system.

Kirk’s food is beautiful. People overuse that word in food, but his really is, both in its intricacies and flavours. It helps that Kirk’s dad is Michelin star chef megastar – Nigel Haworth.

My one piece of advice to people trying to be more sustainable is...

Buy vegetables from organic or wonky veg retailers. It’s the most economical way for people to get on board and make a difference. I would also say never buy meat from a supermarket.

A sustainable brand everyone should know about

Buying your food from recipe box companies is sustainable for many reasons, including reducing food waste. Before I decided to work with Gousto, I went through their sustainability guidelines and saw that they stick to pushing for a more organic and high welfare future.

Gousto allows people to cook with fresh, precise ingredients that have been weighed out meaning no wastage. This can only mean good things from where I’m sitting!

I’ve been working with Gousto on their Cookstarter campaign where they’re helping independent restaurants. My favourites include the Chorizo, Feta and Parmentier Potato tacos from La Pantera in Cardiff – delicious.

Hungry to help? Order a Cookstarter recipe from Gousto from 4 May until 25 May via Gousto.co.uk, and support the Cookstarter finalists by tipping them directly through a partnership with TiPJAR at https://www.wearetipjar.com/tip-cookstarter/ @GoustoCooking #Cookstarter