Moral Conundrum -- The "Bartering Eggs For Coffee" WILL HAPPEN!

[SeaChick]

dangerous---

I do not believe you can really be a hardcore locavore if you are even a nominal foodie. You'd have to REALLY change to way you know how to cook, the way you eat. Sure it can be done but you'll be cooking in rendered animal fat instead of olive oil, making unleavened bread, brewing your own dandelion wine, etc etc. Personally I think that the modifed locavore lifestyle (a la the Kingsolvers) is a fabulous thing and certainly commendable. Great for you family, your community, and the earth. And life has to be pleasurable, I think. Don't feel like you have to give up coffee, wine, yeast, olive oil, lemons... just think about where you are buying them, where the money goes, how they were grown... that's my 2 cents anyway.

And add In Defense of Food (Michael Pollan) to the list of must-reads (read Omnivore's Dilemma first)!

 

[dixygirl]

I understand the pride of making one's own food and being self reliant, using alternate energy sources, returning to our roots, reconnecting with the earth and her cycles. But what is the purpose of being a locavore? Personally I enjoy being cosmopolitan and internationally savy yet being mystically connected with the earth, being self reliant and saving the planet all at the same time.

Is it the point of the locavore movement to celebrate a reconnecting with one's ancestral inability to get around? To celebrate regionalism? Is it part of the New Age Wiccan movement? Or is it like a new trendy bohemian pass time?

I certainly relate with the earth link part but the local aspect has me stumped... I don't get it. Please help.

 

[greyfields]

We keep cultures of yeasts here for bread making and cheese making. You can certainly get around the yeast thing.

 

[carugoman]

cultures are groups of yeasts that are groups of bacterium...so what,precisely, are you trying "to get around" from?

 

[MissPrissy]

Dixygirl - it is about conservation and your carbon footprint on the earth.

Nothing hidden or mystic or pagan about it at all.

It is about putting your money in local in season foods instead of paying twice the price for half the quailty of food being trucked (using fossil fuels to pollute the earth) from across the nation. It means local stores buying local produce from local farmers and keeping more of your money in your community instead of lining the pockets of places like Walmart super stores and big chain grocery stores that bring in all sorts of produce grown in mexico and/or imported from other places.

 

[dangerouschicken]

We have a sourdough starter we use for bread over and over. It just keeps getting better and better.

ole-crone, good point about coffee being an expensive habit, etc. I am actually mildly allergic to coffee, but I keep on drinking it. I think it is a NW thing. We are such a bunch of hardcore addicts. I will have to strongly consider your advisement.

Miss Prissy, well said!

Dixy, I have lived all over the world and tried foods from so many cultures it is ridiculous. I love some foods that can only be found in Japan, China, Korea, etc and will always continue to love them. I buy them and eat them occassionally, and nothing is ruled out unless it doesn't appeal to me at the moment. Whenever my friends come out from Japan, I am always loaded up with Japanese snacks and hard-to-find goodies. I am a foodie, but I am also attempting to eat more of my homegrown goods, or those from my area. It feels right to me.

Here are some reasons for being a locavore (from San Francisco's locavores @ http://www.locavores.com/):

Our food now travels an average of 1,500 miles before ending up on our plates. This globalization of the food supply has serious consequences for the environment, our health, our communities and our tastebuds. Much of the food grown in the breadbasket surrounding us must be shipped across the country to distribution centers before it makes its way back to our supermarket shelves. Because uncounted costs of this long distance journey (air pollution and global warming, the ecological costs of large scale monoculture, the loss of family farms and local community dollars) are not paid for at the checkout counter, many of us do not think about them at all.

What is eaten by the great majority of North Americans comes from a global everywhere, yet from nowhere that we know in particular. How many of our children even know what a chicken eats or how an onion grows? The distance from which our food comes represents our separation from the knowledge of how and by whom what we consume is produced, processed, and transported. And yet, the quality of a food is derived not merely from its genes and the greens that fed it, but from how it is prepared and cared for all the way until it reaches our mouths. If the production, processing, and transport of what we eat is destructive of the land and of human community -- as it very often is -- how can we understand the implications of our own participation in the global food system when those processes are located elsewhere and so are obscured from us? How can we act responsibly and effectively for change if we do not understand how the food system works and our own role within it?

Can we stay within a 100 mile radius? While corporations, which are the principal beneficiaries of a global food system now dominate the production, processing, distribution, and consumption of food, alternatives are emerging which together could form the basis for foodshed development. Just as many farmers are recognizing the social and environmental advantages to sustainable agriculture, so are many consumers coming to appreciate the benefits of fresh and sustainably produced food. Such producers and consumers are being linked through such innovative arrangements as community supported agriculture and farmers' markets. Alternative producers, alternative consumers, and alternative small entrepreneurs are rediscovering community and finding common ground.

 

[dixygirl]

Quote:
Thanks, that would not agree with me. I like decorating with pure handmade silk sarees from India for 80 cents, wearing cholies and coolies from Asia costing $1, using mineral makeup mined from all over the planet for $2 / pound, listening to international music, and still.......
milking a goat, raising chickens and riding horseback. For me it is about enjoying the inexpensive riches from all around our beautiful planet yet being close to the earth and conserving.
For me this is meaningful since my roots are multinational. I do not have background from one state.


Staying local seems to incorporate an unnecessary backwardness into the equation IMHO.



PS I THINK THE LOCAVORE.COM'S POINT IS TO PROMOTE THE SAN FRANCISCO COMMUNITY (on some tacit level)

 

[dangerouschicken]

I hear what you are saying. I think the answer to that is buying fair trade international items. Those producing the products should be paid a real living wage.

 

[greyfields]

*lol* I hope you're stirring the pot here.

How you spend your money certainly affects the world around you. No one is saying you should deny yourself delicacies, but there is a lot to be said for the locavore movement (many of my customers use that term to describe themselves now). Most your money on those cheap goods (and food) goes into diesel and carbon emissions.

Someday we will all be shelling out lots of money to reverse environmental damage. You need to take that into consideration when buying cheap imported items, as they likely will cost you more money in the long run.

The fair trade notion is catching on as well. It's a fair exchange economically and environmentally.

 

[dangerouschicken]

me and greyfields are twinsies.