Most of the legumes, pulse and nuts we get tend to come from overseas currently. With the US and Canada providing some of our favourites; chickpeas, haricots beans and kidney beans. When you look at the country of origin for your nuts & pulses, it’s rare you would see that they’re UK grown. Unless you went specifically out of your way to get UK grown pulses or nuts.

With these products being highly exported, does this give us a higher carbon footprint than if we focused on our British grown protein sources? Of course it does.

Pulses

Does the UK produce pulses?

In fact it does. However, pulses grown in the UK tend to be used to livestock feed or they are exported. Fava Beans is a field bean grown in Britain and is one of our biggest exports to Egypt and Japan.

What pulses are grown in the UK?

Fava beans & field peas are the main ones. UK farms are also trying to grow a few favourites, such as lentils and chickpeas; however these are a bit less reliable in our climate.

British produced pulses include:

·         Fava Beans

·         Flamingo Peas

·         Marrowfat Peas

·         Wrinkled Peas

·         Blue Peas

·         Carlin Peas

·         Green & Yellow Peas

·         Lentils

·         Chickpeas

Fava beans

Not a commonly known pulse. However, the fava bean is grown easily in the UK and protein rich (8.7g/100g – similar to chickpeas). They are known to improve soil quality and are low in CO2 emissions. These are from the same species as broad beans, but the smaller variety.

Peas

Peas are a UK grown favourite and I think they are undervalued! Protein can range from 5g/100g in standard green pea variety to 9.4g/100g in Carlin peas. These legumes are also good to the soil and they can handle a drought; which may be important in our current circumstances. The also use less water than other foods.

Nuts

Producers of nuts are generally carbon negative. This is because to grow the nuts, you have to plant more trees; which remove the CO2 from the atmosphere. Hazelnuts especially use little water and thrive in harsh soils.

Which nuts are grown in the UK?

Hazelnuts, walnuts, chestnuts & cobnuts are the main ones (please let me know if I missed any!)

Seeds

Seeds are high in protein and can be added easily into the diet. They also provide a lot of nutritional value, and can give us omega-3.

Which seeds are grown in the UK?

·         Pumpkin

·         Camelina seed

·         British Chai seed

·         Linseeds

·         Hemp seeds

·         Rapeseeds

·         Mustard seed

·         Coriander seed

How to include more local pulses, nuts and seeds in our diet?

Visit your local food stores; check where your produce was grown. Alternatively; you can hit the web. The company ‘Hodmedod’ supports UK farms in producing UK grown pulses, seeds and grains. They also sell the produce threw their websites or at select wholefood stores around the country.

Get inventive with your cooking; a lot of the UK pulses can be used similarly to the one’s we already know. Get adventurous and use the wonderful web to find some easy recipes.

You could also try you hand at growing your own pulses, and let me know how it goes!

I hope you’ve found this blog post helpful!

Choosing plant based proteins are better for the environment generally, especially when compared to meat and dairy. However, if we could move to local, British produced pulses, nuts or seeds; we can lower our carbon footprint even further.

Do you want to make more sustainable local choices? Contact me and we’ll work together to see what your next steps are.

I’m a Manchester and Cheshire based private dietitian who specialises in vegan, sustainable diets.

Thank you for reading!