The 100 km Diet means you can pretty much forget about brand names. For the most part brand names get their raw ingredients from huge geographic areas and ship them to a single or limited number of central processing plants. From there the product is shipped all over regions, continents, or the world.
The subsidies we pour into the fossil fuel industry means it is more profitable to centralize processing and ship rather than to disperse production and reduce shipping costs. This subsidy reverberates through the food system as wholesalers stock only a limited number of subsidised brand names, so in turn most retailers offer only the same limited selection.
In practice this means that early adopters, people who are first to try something new, have a very tough time. A tour of the mustards in my kitchen shows they come from Germany, France, Finland, England. Ok, so I buy local mustards like, like, like ... are there even any?
Maybe not, and even if there is it is unlikely that I could get the range of flavours that I currently enjoy, and there is no reason for it. I accept that mangos and chocolate are forever banished from my diet, but mustard seed grows just fine in the Ottawa area.
At the moment this diet means I am probably going to have to become a tea totaller. I don't drink much anyway, but the ocassional beer, glass of wine, or scotch is enjoyable to me. Here again there is no reason why Ottawa could not produce beers, vodka, liquers, pear brandy, cider, calvados, whiskey, etc. There is even the possibility of spruce beer and birch wine, thereby supporting natual areas as well as bioregional economies.
Just as every small baker will offer a variety of breads and baked goods, all produced on site, there is no reason someone could not set up a condiment shoppe that offers a wide range of mustards all made on site with locally grown mustard seed.
OK, one reason ... we would be unwilling to support it. Enough people have come to value a good, fresh olive bread or dark rye that they are willing to pay the extra cost to support a business that is not taking as much advantage of the oil industry subsidies. We are, as yet, not willing to support all of the other potential small businesses that could be producing local products from local materials.
The innovators who fight this trend must do it as a cottage industry, motivated by love. Thanks to John Lubrun who created Chamomile Desjardins I am able to enjoy a range of really excellent hot sauces, all locally produced from largely locally grown ingredients
http://www.ottawafarmersmarket.ca/vendors.html.
We have to support these people so that more local options become available to a broader population, thereby making it easier for them to reduce their ecological footprint by consuming locally.
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2 comments:
What's the line for hothouse plants? I would assume most local vegetables available at this time would be grown in greenhouses...which use their share of resources for heating.
I ask this because ... suppose a hot house mango tree...?
(and I mention this because wow. I can't imagine never eating chocolate or tropical fruit again. but also, there was a point in my life I couldn't imagine never eating meat again)
Cheerio,
Jiayi.
Jiayi
No, at this time there is still lots of root vegies and squash that are stored at cool temperatures, like a cellar... easy to manage at this time of year. Beets, potato, onions, carrots; not as varied as a summer diet, but still varied. Throw in my own garden veg from the freezer and sprouts grown on my fridge top (the 1 km diet) and that part is relatively easy.
And no, I am not going with hothouse (although I doubt there is much around Ottawa anyway), the carbon cost is way too high.
As for tropical fruit, pears are pretty awesome and they definitely grow right here in Ottawa ... it would be tougher to do this in Thunder Bay for sure.
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