Not to sound like the dinosaur that as a Just Over 50 guy I might be, I do remember living back in the days when you ate what was in season.
In my first few years, I ate local and local often meant fruits and vegetables from my grandfather’s garden.
The Free-Range Chicken and the Eggs came from his Chicken Coop.
I am not sure if he used much chemicals, I doubt he did as the main source of nutrients for the soil came from the backyard compost…
Where am I going with this trip down memory lane?
I was reading about the ongoing debate of Eating Local versus Eating Organic or what has the Greenest stripes.
Robin McKie and Caroline Davies in Sunday’s Observer look at How the myth of food miles hurts the planet.
They use as an example Mike and Karen Small and their two children who have consumed only food and drink bought in their home district of Burntisland, Fife (Scotland) for the past 6 months.
They are what some call locavores.
Putting all the focus on the fact that overseas product is often shipped by air is too narrow. The authors take as an example Kenyan green beans found in British supermarkets when the local ones are out of season. The African crop is "produced in a highly environmentally-friendly
manner. ‘Beans there are grown using manual labour – nothing is
mechanised,’ says Professor Gareth Edwards-Jones of Bangor University,
an expert on African agriculture. ‘They don’t use tractors, they use
cow muck as fertiliser; and they have low-tech irrigation systems in
Kenya. They also provide employment to many people in the developing
world. So you have to weigh that against the air miles used to get them
to the supermarket."
On the San Francisco restaurant scene, Michael Bauer reviews the Well-balanced, hyper-local fare at Fish & Farm. The main drawback he finds of serving only local seasonal fare is that "at times, similar ingredients
are used repeatedly. If you’re not careful when ordering, as we weren’t
on one visit, the meal may be a bit one-dimensional".
To conclude, looking beyond our embarrassment of riches (choices), regarding rice a basic staple for many, Jim Giles (New Scientist) writes how this Major food source threatened by climate change.
Thought for Food on Green Day #22
Last Tuesday’s Topic: 1 Billion People lack clean water, World Water Day, 2008
Related: Fresh and Juicy, ‘Food Routes’ maps your Local Fresh Produce