LOCAL

I have to start out this blog post by saying talking about healthy food systems is an incredibly complex topic. And I thought making clothes were hard.  Selling an apple can be even more complicated.

I am interested in the word LOCAL. Customers want local, restaurants and markets advertise local, but do we really understand what local means?

I spent the day today at a conference hosted by the Gorge Grown Food Network. The day brought together producers and buyers of local food and others interested in building a local food economy.

For me local is also a philosophy of understanding. For instance if I buy local, I also have to buy seasonally, this changes my diet and also my expectations of what a sustainable food system may look like.  You may have heard you don't eat fresh tomatoes in January because they are grown so far away that it take planes to get them too you.
So this means I have to prepare my food or buy from those who know how to can, dry, freeze my fruits and vegetables so I can live through the winter.

Local is also an opportunity to talk about sustainable.  It is fine if that pear was grown locally, but if it was sprayed with pesticide I should be more concerned because that is my backyard where that run off is going into the water where I swim or fish.

Local brings this idea of knowing where your food comes from, having a relationship with the farm and farmer. But there is a need to go to the next step - to ask yourself what does local mean to you? What values are your going to support?  Would you spend more for organic, for that CSA box - to make a difference in your local economy and for your local environment?

I've only been in the Gorge 9 months and it has taken a lot of questions to understand my food system and I am lucky because there is a passionate and engaged group of people who want to educate, to increase the availability and build the connections. It is the start of an investigation. But one that is so important to me and to the roots of sustainability - pun totally intended!

Sustainable food

I am currently up in Hood River Oregon where the valley is just glorious in all of the blossoms.  I am loving the conversations of all the fruit that is starting its growing process and keep asking when are these crops going to be ready to harvest?  You might notice I can't wait.

There are so many aspects to sustainable food and for this post I wanted to think about how much I really need to stay alive, thus sustain my existence.  And couple this will how much food I want to eat.  I could eat and do eat a lot more than I need to stay alive.
The balance of calories is a micro example of a sustainable system.
First you have to determine how many calories you need.  There are all kinds of website that can help determine this.  It gets a bit complicated when you factor in your exercise and lifestyle.  But the average person needs about 2000 calories a day.  So if you break down your meals into 3 a day that is about 667 per meal.  And some of us eat snacks, so move some calories over to snacks and take them away from meals.

Well we all can attest to not eating enough, or eating too much and finding that balance.  Maybe you eat too many calories at one time because you know you are going to be with less at another time and you are planning.  Also what happens when the calories we need are not available - pretend you can't just go to the grocery store and buy apples from around the world?

This has been a neat exercise for me, because it made me think how much I rely on connivence and what kind of changes I would have to make to plan out my food in take and caloric burning if food was limited.  Ultimately this is the kind of level of detail we should know to truly incorporate sustainability into our daily living...

Eating our way to sustainability

I just finished Jonathan Safran Soer's book Eating Animals - I have been a vegetarian for the past 16 years and it was not a book for the faint of heart.  I admit I skipped a few pages, as I am a vegetarian for a reason.  I grew up on a farm in Northern British Columbia and saw how animals were killed, so that part doesn't both me as much as the factory farm piece, the way animals live and our responsibility for that.
Factory Farms were at the core of this book, not only the way animals are treated, but the health risk these farms pose to consumers, neighbors and the planet at large.  Interestingly he noted that these farms are not about creating food, but about creating money.  And when you have animals as your commodity it becomes an even more tense situation.
Our relationship to food is so varied and so that means our strategy towards sustainability will be the same.
For instance there are millions of people in this world who live in poverty and do not have access to food.  And then there are another group of millions who have access to so much food that there are societies with obesity issues. Is the issue about redistribution of this food?  Or could it be looked slightly differently about sustainability of food, food systems, human health and balance with local ecosystems to provide the sustainable amount of food.
In many ways this is what we should be advocating - but doing so in the USA means that millions of food calories do not need to even be produced.  Concern then grows for the livelihoods of the people growing this food.  What if systems were slowed down so the output was lower, more people had jobs and the food that we ate was contributing to a sustainable ecosystem instead of taking away from it.
There are some amazing models of sustainable food systems all of the world that need more voice and need to be supported.  All the way from local farming practices in places like Africa to urban agriculture in Washington DC.

Reconnecting with our food is something we all must take on as a personal challenge - this is the daily relationship with sustainability that we can live.