After reading that Newspaper article in the National Post
I talked about a couple days ago, I just finished reading the 100-Mile Diet written by Alisa Smith, and J.B. Mackinnon in order to begin to put into perspective considerations for the future when it comes to our environment and food. Considering the riots around rice, there's no time like the present to begin a foray into local eating. The book was an extremely well written, thought-provoking chronicle of the experiment of eating locally and I throughly enjoyed it.
Now the question is, how does one go about writing about everything in a book within the scope of this medium??It certainly is agood question and I'm not really sure of what the answer is, so I'll do my best to cover the main points in some coherent fashion.
What I thought was of significant note was the author's acknowledgement and understanding that the efforts of two people to eat locally are not meant to save the world, nor would they ever be successful in doing so, but rather, reveal some very important facts about today's consumption habits and, more importantly, the missing factor of
traceability of where our foods come from. What I truly hope will happen, is that by many people reading
The 100-Mile Diet, not only will the earth become healthier, but this book will inspire thoughts of sustainability and the manner in which it is becoming less and less apparent, particularly from a Canadian perspective.
What I found myself thinking about constantly was the fact that Canada was once a self-sustained country, and now, so much product is imported and exported daily, that we are slowly losing our independance as a country. We are very quickly becoming more and more dependant on other countries to provide us with even simple things such as our produce, when Canada is so abundant with food!!
I once knew someone (who ironically was working towards an enivronmental studies degree) who bought three individual slices of watermelon in February and said "I like me a slice of Watermelon any time of the year!"
Each and every time I think about local eating, I think about this particular example. This person had no idea or consideration for how far those three slices of watermelon had travelled to end up on her plate, which is the scary part. The implications of the likely underpaid labour, and the emissions alone should be enough to force someone to stick to seasonal, local vegetables. Moreso, I would think that the lower quality of product would also play a part. Since the move towards globalization has become so rapid, it is the
traceability of our food that has become so distant, as well as the quality. Mackinnon talks about traceability, and said some things that I think are worth quoting:
It's no secret, that we, as a society, have been losing the traceability not only of our food, but of every aspect of our lives. On any given day, chances are high I will have no idea what phase the moon is in. I cannot reliably list my brothers' birthdates, and I regularly use products that work according to principles that I cannot explain... Fifty years aglo, there was still widespread connection to food and the places that it comes from. In the United States, 40 million people lived in the countryside. Many people kept kitchen gardens, raised chickens, or knew a beekeeper... now...legions of modern children have never seen a cow. (55)
How can kids never have seen a cow? How has the cow become the absent referent to the production of milk? The meat on our plates? How have we lost so much connection and understanding of our food?? How have all the things we eat become so disembodied or disconnected? The answer of course is our desire to have everything when we want it, not when it is
in season
or
available. But rather,
on demand. It is this "on demand" attitude that is causing us to deplete the earth's resourses at astounding rates...
The average Canadian's food has about 2, 500 kms of travel total. This is truly atrocious. Tomatoes are picked off the vine while they are still green even though the peak time to pick tomatoes in order to ensure the freshest nutrient rich product, is, like other produce, when the fruit or veggie is at its peak ripeness. So, in the effort to have whichever fruit/vegetable whenever we want it, we compromise our earth, which is highly unethical, and we compromise the nutritional value of the food we are consuming, which is just plain stuid.
In fact, a line from Ani difranco's Song
Half-Assed says it all:
"Spring is super in the supermarkets/and the strawberries prance and glow/nevermind that they're all kinda tart and tasteless/as strawberries go/meanwhile wild things are not for sale/anymore than they are for show"
Now, at any time of the year, one can find any type of produce in the
supermarket, and it is so normalized, that consumers would never even consider how much these purchases damage the earth, and themselves. There is truly a difference between fresh picked strawberries and strawberries shipped from California, but the sad part is that we are beginning to forget that tangible and important difference: Ontario strawberries are infinitely juicier and sweeter than California strawberries. They are a brighter red, they are strawberries the way strawberries were when we were kids and we went with our moms to pick them. The lesson of
The 100-mile diet is this tangible difference that we cannot forget, or we will lose our local farmers, and produce, we will lose our self-sustainability.
However, part of the problem is that not everyone even recognizes the problem with eating imported foods and, specifically "non-foods" which have become the dominant discourse of our eating habits. The fact is that these eating habits, (ie: being able to access watermelon in the winter with little to no effort) are becoming normalized, and it doesn't even occur to the average consumer to consider how a product made its way into the store.
The 100-mile diet provokes me to consider how every item I eat ended up on my plate, which causes me to make better choices for my health and for the earth. Essentially, because the supermarkets and corporations are taking over everything, we are losing a sense of the possible, and this is very sad indeed.
Mackinnon again:
The garden is a constant reminder that our depleted global environment is linked to the gap we have constructed between our food and ourselves, but a deeper truth is rooted in paleoecology. The science bears witness to changes enormous in scale, the fact that even the continents are work in progress.
It can make a person's brief existence seem meaningless; more than that, though, it staggers the mind with the duty of care in our everyday lives.
The universe seethed a billion years to give us a row of cabbages, or a quail's egg, or a broken heart. (pp146-146, emphasis mine)
So, I will conclude this post because it is getting excessively long, but not before I say just a couple more things:
- Alisa and J.B. wrote often in their book how 100-mile eating was like adding another part-time job to their life- it's actually sad that it has become so difficult to purchase locally, and so they don't maintain that everyone should strive completely to eat locally because it is a lot of extra work, but to make a conscious effort to make wise consumer choices
- In all of our consumer choices we need to make a concerted effort to choose foods that are good for ourselves and the earth- which I have begun to do in everything I purchase, particularly with all these "non-foods" disguised very sneakily as food
- For anyone in the K-W area, I have found a "Year-round guide to local food" which provides a link in order to help everyone purchase locally: Foodlink Waterloo Region
- Read the book. It's an "easy" read, but makes very important points about the state of the earth and self-sustaining countries. Eating locally with preserve the self-sustainability of Canada as well as help save our local farming, and in the end save farm country world-wide- a real eye opener that I reccommend 100%
Coming up:
- In Defense of Food- I'll take a look at "food" today (think: Oreo Cakesters, which only have 4 real food ingredients out of about 20 on the list, McDonalds, MSG in just about everything)
- The Sexual Politics of Meat- Animals and Women as an absent referent, the connection between the abuse and slaughter of animals and the abuse and butchering of women... an argument as to why every feminist should be a vegetarian. (I've read a couple chapters already, it's pretty convincing)
