Chillin at 90

Saturday night I had a couple of pieces of toast and Sunday was my first full day of normal eating. As I started eating what was a fairly typical meal for me I was rather taken aback to realize that with the exception of a tablespoon of mustard all of it either was or could be local, easily.

Hastily I ran through all of my standard meals that I tend to make for myself and thought about the ingredients. Without exception they were easy to make using local products with the exception of 1 to 4 tablespoons of various spices or falvourings.

What about some of my more special meals? How about a nice Indian dinner? Dahl? use local lentils. Aloo Gosht? easy. Rice? use soft wheat, the nutty flavour will go very nicely. Nann, piece of nann. Curried eggplant, spiced potatos, spinach ... hundreds of possible dishes, and with the exception of a few teaspoons of spices, all easy to get locally.

Chinese? Garlic and blackbean eggplant? spicey salty tofu? spring noodles? la jiao? easy easy easy.

My Haitian Goat Curry (vegan version)? which I have like what? twice a year? substitute pears and peaches from Kitchener for the mango and other fruit, used powdered coconut milk, and the carbon cost is like 20% of the typical North American meal.

Japanese, Chinese, Latin American, African ... most of the cuisines I have grown to love are all still perfectly possible with a few substitutions here and there.

In fact, even allowing for the spices and special flavourings, if I make sure the source of the substance of the meal, the actual vegies, grains, etc are local, I can bring my diets carbon cost down to something like 6% or 7% of the avg North American's - EVEN if I include some olives, mirin, figs, curry, etc.

So what was I so worked up about these past few weeks?

I guess two things. First, it is too easy to get focused on a few things like bananas and chocolate that are banished forever and see the whole diet as being one of deprivation and loss. This is totally the wrong mind set, but reinforced when everyone you talk to is saying "My God, what will you eat?"

Second, in looking at my own kitchen I was overwhelmed by the bulk of things like the vinegars, curries and sauces. What I was ignoring was the fact that these turn over very slowly. A tiny jar of mole lasts me months. In that same time huge amounts of vegies and grains flow through my kitchen.

eg Sugar is heavy, and I use it for baking bread ... a Tblsp per loaf, and I can use honey instead. Also one tsp salt. The rest of the loaf can all be local ... it is the flour that is the real weight of the bread.

The weight, and hence the carbon cost, is in the vegies and grains. If I get them locally the remaining 5% of every meal is fairly trivial.

So it turns out that my diet does NOT need to change much at all, My habits do ... everything must be prepared at home from ingredients produced locally, but the difference this is going to make in what I actually eat is minimal. Wow - epiphany!

So I give me an 'A' for a diet that will be over 90% local at a carbon cost of about 7% of the North American avg, and go right on enjoying a diet that is more varied, interesting, and nutritious than that North American average. Nothing to be afraid of at all ....