If we all pay a bit more attention to buying local and sustainable food, we’ll be on the right track.

Do you have a traditional breakfast in your country? Well, Slovenia celebrates Slovenian Food Day every third Friday in November (which is today!) to support national food providers and highlight the importance of quality local food, and a part of that initiative is also the traditional Slovenian breakfast.

The breakfast project first started in 2011 at the beehest (heh) of the Slovenian Beekeepers’ Association, because as you know by now, my country is the beekeeping land that also brought us the World Bee Day, to raise awareness of bees and beekeeping. They organised and donated the ingredients for a traditional Slovenian breakfast to kindergartens and primary schools with the support of various farmers and food processing industry and the whole thing went so well that the government is now covering the food costs for every school or kindergarten that chooses to serve such a breakfast on the day. In fact, it went so very well, that they are now campaigning to start a European honey breakfast thing.

So, what makes a traditional Slovenian breakfast? It’s simple: all you need is bread, butter, honey, apples and milk, but they must be locally sourced. I’m not entirely sure how they decided that this was THE traditional Slovenian breakfast, since there are about as many local traditional breakfasts as there are Slovenian villages on the map, but it seems to work. It was also a staple during my childhood days and I used to hate the weekly honey and butter bread days with a passion, because I didn’t really like honey (I’m still very particular about it) and the bread was always generic, but I imagine that if the kids now get proper bread and honey it must be a million times better.

Either way, I think it’s a great way to raise awareness and teach children about the importance of local food, beekeeping and healthy living. Since it became a whole national thing, it’s now also accompanied by educational days and lessons about farming and agriculture, the environmental impact of the food processing industry, food waste and waste management in general, and I sincerely hope that at least some of it sticks.

So, next time you’re not sure what to have for breakfast, I recommend trying a traditional Slovenian breakfast (locally sourced from wherever you are, of course) and a healthy dose of awareness and gratitude for the food that has found its way to your plate. Let me know how it goes!