AlterNet: Is Eating Local Even Possible?

[marmar]

Is Eating Local Even Possible?

By Suzi Steffen, AlterNet. Posted August 25, 2007.



The author samples some of the growing list of how-to books on eating local -- including the latest from Barbara Kingsolver -- and follows their recipes for the slow food lifestyle.



I'm a grasshopper by nature. I procrastinate, I put off, I delay. Sometimes I simply can't get anything done -- and it's all because I love to read.

But reading can kick your ass. Thanks to books, I'm spending my summer like the fabled ant, building up food stores from local providers. Eating local -- goat cheese from the farmers' market or eggs from my friends' chickens, vegetables and fruit as abundant as weeds -- is easy right now in Oregon's fertile Willamette Valley. But I want to stay as local as possible in the winter. And that desire has turned me into an ant, the workhorse of food procuring -- I don't even have time to read for pleasure anymore, except when I'm walking to the farmers' market. And it's all the fault of books.

Why am I spending my free hours drying, freezing and canning food? Three books. One is a work of fiction, Susan Beth Pfeiffer's 2006 young adult novel Life as We Knew It. Her dystopian disaster narrative clearly reflects fears about global warming -- and terrifies everyone who reads it. The other two are the hot nonfiction books of the liberal moment, at least for those of us concerned about food security, food safety and a cleaner, less polluted environment: Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Plenty (called The 100 Mile Diet in Canada, a far more accurate title), by young Vancouver journalists Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon.

In Life as We Knew It, a huge meteor hits the moon, causing massive tidal problems and creating volcanic upheaval. Smoke spreads over the globe, causing little light to get through the particle-laden atmosphere (like the year after a volcano caused the explosion of the island Krakatoa in the late 1800s). Nothing can grow. People subsist through the winter weakly on canned food and vitamins. The intimate terror of this book causes young adult librarians and high school teachers I know to purchase food in bulk from Costco. I'm not a Costco person. I decide to go local.

That attitude only grows after I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Plenty. I must say I adore Barbara Kingsolver's essays but find her fiction a bit too didactic. Animal, a work of nonfiction, frustrates me too, especially in the sections contemptuous of city dwellers and exalting of farmers. Sorry, good lady and your family, but city dwellers tend to use less energy per person than those in rural or suburban life. You know -- public transit? Apartments? Biking or walking to work and school?

Food miles, however: Those might run a little farther. She's got me there. Kingsolver, and Smith and MacKinnon, quote an Iowa State University study that shows the average piece of food in 1980 traveled 1,500 miles before it hit our plates; Smith and MacKinnon point out that's has only increased and that it isn't counting processed food like, say, my favorite Turtle Island tofu products. Damn! .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/environment/59996/

[bananas]

1. Certified Farmers' Markets

"More specifically, a CFM is a location approved by the county agricultural commissioner where certified farmers offer for sale only those agricultural products they grow themselves. California Certified Farmers' Markets are operated in accordance with regulations established in 1977 by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Only a handful of CFM's were in the California direct marketing program back then. There are nearly 500 Certified Farmers Markets in the State now and the number is growing every year."
http://www.cafarmersmarkets.com/about

[razzleberry]

2. stop frivolous flying

it is one thing to ship
lettuce by rail. energy cost, next to nothing.

something else entirely,
when you must feast on the endangered Patagonian Toothfish,
transported most of the way by jet airfreight.

[kestrel91316]

3. Stop frivolous driving, too, while you're at it. Is it really necessary

to saddle up the Excursion to drive Mom (and only Mom) half a mile to the local grocery? Every day? (you KNOW there are people who do this - you just know) And then drive home, then drive to get hair and nails done, and drive to Trader Joe's for specialty items, and then to the post office, and then to the library, and then BACK to Trader Joe's for what you forgot the first time, etc etc etc.

I know there are folks who do this here in LA, because I USED TO BE ONE OF THEM (except for the Excursion) 15-20 years ago.

[razzleberry]

4. tax on international jet fuel is zero

a a good deal when you feed a wedding party
with endangered species not available
in the US

[Viva_La_Revolution]

5. nice try

it was certified NOT endangered.

http://digg.com/politics/Al_Gore_s_Endangered_Fish_Dinner_Story_Untrue