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.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Day 3: Working it Out
OK, the whole point to trying to go with the 100 km diet is to reduce my ecological footprint, particularly the Green House Gas production. As a result my particular concern with this challenge is the weight and volume issue ... how heavy is the food and how often do I eat it.
For example, dried spices I am not going to get in a snit over - the 100 gm of cardamon I consume every year or two is no big deal. On the other hand non-local tomatoes, oranges, bananas, juices are all definitely OUT.
As a rough guideline I have been looking at eliminating non-local wet things: fruit and veg, sauces, jams, etc. Anything that is wet is heavy, particularly in terms of the portion of the weight that is nutrition vs water. We burn huge amounts of fuel and subsequently generate billions of tonnes of Green House Gases moving water around in the form of tomatoes, juices, etc.
Not so tough: In Ottawa there is an abundance of vegetables that keep in storage like just about all roots (potatoes, carrots, onions, beets, etc) and squashes of all kinds. Additionally I have a freezer full of greens and other vegetables that were grown in my own garden, and jars of pickles (eggplant, peppers, onions, beets) that were canned using local produce. For fruits there are apples of course, and my freezer has locally grown pears as well.
For fresh greens the first lettuces are available in May, and kale will grow right into December. For living healthy greens in mid-winter I am growing sprouts on the top of my fridge. I am not sure about the source of the seeds, but even if they are not local they are relatively light compared to the volume of shipped produce that they replace.
Tough: Basically all processed and prepared foods are OUT; for the most part all of the ingredients are not locally grown. No more grabbing a sandwich or soup when I forgot to bring supper. Goodbye eating out for pizza, falafels, chinese, etc except on very special occasions (Christmas?).
Really tough: It is clear that I am going to have prioritize certain things and kiss some things goodbye. While I may find local sources for things like cooking oils and flour, there are other things that are simply not going to be found locally. For some I consume so little by weight that I will not worry too much, but there are other things that I consume enough that it has a significant environmental impact.
I am thinking of things like olive oil, dark sesame oil, tahini, shoyu, rice, raisins, etc as well as the variety of sauces, jams, curries, and various spices that make up my kitchen. Not that I consume huge amounts of any one of these, but taken together it amounts to quite a bit. For example I go through perhaps one jar each of mole, kashmiri masala, adobo, lao gama, wood apple jam, mango pickle, guilin, lime pickle etc per year. Individually they do not amount to much, but taken together it's quite a bit, never mind decent mustard. Sigh ...
Sigh because my intent is to continue after the 40 days and adopt this diet as best I can from now on ...
For example, dried spices I am not going to get in a snit over - the 100 gm of cardamon I consume every year or two is no big deal. On the other hand non-local tomatoes, oranges, bananas, juices are all definitely OUT.
As a rough guideline I have been looking at eliminating non-local wet things: fruit and veg, sauces, jams, etc. Anything that is wet is heavy, particularly in terms of the portion of the weight that is nutrition vs water. We burn huge amounts of fuel and subsequently generate billions of tonnes of Green House Gases moving water around in the form of tomatoes, juices, etc.
Not so tough: In Ottawa there is an abundance of vegetables that keep in storage like just about all roots (potatoes, carrots, onions, beets, etc) and squashes of all kinds. Additionally I have a freezer full of greens and other vegetables that were grown in my own garden, and jars of pickles (eggplant, peppers, onions, beets) that were canned using local produce. For fruits there are apples of course, and my freezer has locally grown pears as well.
For fresh greens the first lettuces are available in May, and kale will grow right into December. For living healthy greens in mid-winter I am growing sprouts on the top of my fridge. I am not sure about the source of the seeds, but even if they are not local they are relatively light compared to the volume of shipped produce that they replace.
Tough: Basically all processed and prepared foods are OUT; for the most part all of the ingredients are not locally grown. No more grabbing a sandwich or soup when I forgot to bring supper. Goodbye eating out for pizza, falafels, chinese, etc except on very special occasions (Christmas?).
Really tough: It is clear that I am going to have prioritize certain things and kiss some things goodbye. While I may find local sources for things like cooking oils and flour, there are other things that are simply not going to be found locally. For some I consume so little by weight that I will not worry too much, but there are other things that I consume enough that it has a significant environmental impact.
I am thinking of things like olive oil, dark sesame oil, tahini, shoyu, rice, raisins, etc as well as the variety of sauces, jams, curries, and various spices that make up my kitchen. Not that I consume huge amounts of any one of these, but taken together it amounts to quite a bit. For example I go through perhaps one jar each of mole, kashmiri masala, adobo, lao gama, wood apple jam, mango pickle, guilin, lime pickle etc per year. Individually they do not amount to much, but taken together it's quite a bit, never mind decent mustard. Sigh ...
Sigh because my intent is to continue after the 40 days and adopt this diet as best I can from now on ...
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Day One of the Challenge
Just so we're clear I'll state right off that I have adapted the the Challenge. The original concept was to get people to go vegetarian for 40 days http://www.veggiechallenge.blogspot.com/ , but different folks have been tweaking it and so am I.
The problem for me is that I am already Veg, so that's not much of a challenge. I am also already 95% vegan, and for various reasons the last 5% is problematical as well as not likely to make much of a difference for the environment, so I decided against trying that.
Instead I have decided to try for the 100 Km diet, ie consume only food that was grown within 100 km of where I live. I have resisted doing this for quite a while because I knew it would be very difficult.
Then it occurred to me that if I applied the same 'rule' to the 100 Km as I do to my Veganism it would be both achievable and very beneficial in terms of cutting down my ecological footprint, especially Green House Gas production.
So there's my self challenge, to get 95% of my diet (by weight) to fit the 100 km limit.
And the reason to blog is to share both the challenges and solutions I discover as I try to do this. "Discover" being the operative word since the idea only occurred to me the other day so I didn't plan this out at all.
Day One: Cheating already. OK, not really, just finishing off 3 oranges that I had forgotten about. After they are gone that will be it for non-local fruit and vegies ...
The problem for me is that I am already Veg, so that's not much of a challenge. I am also already 95% vegan, and for various reasons the last 5% is problematical as well as not likely to make much of a difference for the environment, so I decided against trying that.
Instead I have decided to try for the 100 Km diet, ie consume only food that was grown within 100 km of where I live. I have resisted doing this for quite a while because I knew it would be very difficult.
Then it occurred to me that if I applied the same 'rule' to the 100 Km as I do to my Veganism it would be both achievable and very beneficial in terms of cutting down my ecological footprint, especially Green House Gas production.
So there's my self challenge, to get 95% of my diet (by weight) to fit the 100 km limit.
And the reason to blog is to share both the challenges and solutions I discover as I try to do this. "Discover" being the operative word since the idea only occurred to me the other day so I didn't plan this out at all.
Day One: Cheating already. OK, not really, just finishing off 3 oranges that I had forgotten about. After they are gone that will be it for non-local fruit and vegies ...
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