Local Delicious

Hey readers, LocalDelicious.com was mentioned in the Globe and Mail today! Way of the Locavore: Four Ways to Escape Global Food by Wency Leung offers ideas on how to go about local sourcing your food.

LocalDelicious.com was featured under Lesson 2: Start Small:

If you were to analyze the lifecycle of every grocery item you bought, you’d be paralyzed whenever you went shopping, says Liz Gaige, the Vancouver resident behind the website LocalDelicious.com.

“You don’t have to change your whole diet,” she says. “But if you just shifted 5 per cent of your grocery budget into eating more locally, eating more healthfully and … thinking about where your stuff’s coming from, it has this huge impact.”

Ms. Gaige says she’s always had an interest in “the artisan approach to stuff,” and has been buying her food at farmers markets long before it was popular to do so. She believes in supporting small, local businesses as a way of strengthening the local economy and building community ties.

But it doesn’t matter what your motivations are for dropping out, she says; every step has greater consequences. If you start buying organic meat, for instance, simply because you want a better-tasting option, that decision may also be better for the environment and more humane, she says. And once you start examining one aspect of your food, it becomes natural to scrutinize other parts of your diet. For example, if you consider buying organic, free-range eggs, you may soon find yourself buying organic, free-range chicken and other meats too.

“I never expected to be like a tree-hugger, but I kind of am just because of these small, incremental steps that I take,” Ms. Gaige says, noting that she grows some vegetables in her yard, and buys non-medicated meat and organic produce.

“I’m not going to agonize and spend my life freaking out about every food decision, but it’s about, on a greater consciousness, ‘Okay, what am I trying to accomplish here?’ ”

The online version is slightly expanded from the print version, so if you only read the newspaper you’ll miss some of the juicy parts. Check out the full article.

When I recently posted a video of police in the US raiding an organic food store with guns drawn, my first thought was “Oh look, the War on Raw Cheese has begun.” After all, those frightening organic grocers are a pretty deadly threat, don’t you think?

My second, less tongue-in-cheek thought was, “Yikes, if it happens there, someday it could happen here.” Yikes indeed. Turns out, it might not be someday, it might be next week.

Among other concerns, first Bill C-6 and now the new Bill C-36 give Health Canada unprecedented rights to literally enter private citizens’ homes and businesses with no legal safeguards for those citizens. What’s wrong with this picture? Even known drug lords are innocent until proven guilty.

I’ve always appreciated that we Canadians take a more reasoned, conservative approach to meddling with the affairs of our citizens. Or so I thought. Seems the reduction of civil liberties in the name of security may not be something we lament only for our neighbours to the south.

I want to have a choice about what goes into my body whether it’s water, food, or medicine. I’m bright enough to seek out options, I make choices, and I take the responsibility. My choice may not be your choice, but allowing it to be my choice is precisely the beauty that living in a democracy offers.

In my view, health regulations are meant to ensure I’m getting the truth about my options, not for someone to be forcing choices on me, without my having any recourse or external checks and balances.

I was recently asked by a reporter if I trust our health regulations. Well no, no I don’t. Not unreservedly. I mean, it was perfectly legal to put unhealthy goop on movie popcorn for decades until the public got wind of what it actually contained and raised a ruckus. Right? And it took the action of private citizens to bring the truth about cigarettes to light, didn’t it? (And still we have choice about cigarettes.)

I don’t know all the in’s and out’s about the new proposed Health Canada legislation (Bill C-36) but it’s worth learning more before it quietly passes into law.

National Health Products Protection Association
Health Canada Exposed
Shiv Chopra, Health Canada Whistleblower

I do know that we need to maintain our right to choice and our right to due process. Giving any government organization the right to operate above the law is a recipe for disaster. And it’s not democracy.

There are many ways to support an Eat Local habit.

If you really want to go crazy, you can try a zero mile diet, a backyard garden. Or in some cases, the two block diet or the 5 ½ block diet (my choice, since that’s how far my community garden plot is).

More likely — and a lot less work — feeding your Eat Local addiction could be buying produce or preserves at a farmers market or craft fair. It might be supporting a local food retailer or buying via a CSA program (community supported agriculture) or food co-op.

Or even more simply, it could be as effortless as checking the label at the supermarket, and choosing products with a tell-tale red, Made in Canada maple leaf on the package.

Announcing the Look at the Label Campaign

Really, it’s not a big deal. You don’t have to sign a placard or worse, carry a placard. To be part of the Look at the Label Campaign, you just have to, well…look at the label. Find out how far your food has traveled to reach you, and choose options that are produced nearer to home. While you’re at it, you can look for additional benefits.

• Look at the labels in the produce section to find out where your fruit and veggies come from, then choose the ones from closest by and grown with the best farming practices. Choosing items that are currently in season will help support your local farmers year round.
• Read the labels in the bakery to find out which goods were made locally and which were shipped a great distance. If they’ve come a long way and have a long shelf life they’ll have had to be pumped full of preservatives. Real food, the kind with nutritional value, will rot. Pseudo food, does not.
• Examine the labels in the sauces and canned goods aisles. I’ll bet you can find the lots of local sources for your favourite flavours amidst the dizzying array of options.
• Check out the labels in the coffee and tea aisles. I can’t find coffee that’s grown nearby, but that doesn’t mean I’m giving it up! I can, however, choose locally roasted and/or fair trade beans that give farmers a living wage.
• Definitely look at the label in the meat department. Nearby sources are good, organic and grain fed are even better. Meat and poultry are prime sources of secondhand pesticides, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Face it, eventually, we eat what they’ve eaten.
• Be sure to check the label of eggs and dairy products both to ensure the animals have been raised humanely, and to be sure you know what you’re eating. For example, “frozen dessert” instead of “ice cream” on a label is code for “made with petroleum by-products,” which is just gross.

Michael Pollan said it best when he described his rules for buying food. If the ingredients are not something you would find in your grandmother’s pantry, don’t put it in your mouth.

If you’re wondering where you can find local goods at this time of year, the gods are with you. The annual Vancouver Farmers Market Holiday Market is (almost) here again.

If you already make it a habit to buy local, now is the time to find tasty and tasteful gifts that encourage the ones you love to also appreciate the bounty in our region.

If you are only beginning to explore all the unique and wonderful food, art and creations that our region has to offer, you are in for a lovely treat.

Saturday, December 11, 2010
10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Croation Cultural Centre
3250 Commercial Drive @ 16th Avenue

With the wide variety of vendors and blend of artisan and food products available, you’re guaranteed to find something to satisfy everyone’s palate.

Industrialized food production is a hot topic these days as more and more people learn the truth about what, exactly, is going into their mouths.

Typically we think of industrialized food as mega farms that produce miles and miles of the same crop year after year using chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Or factory farms housing thousands of cattle, chickens or pigs in close quarters that are fed growth hormones and antibiotics.

But what about water? If you buy bottled water, there’s an excellent chance it was pumped by the hectolitre out of some municipality’s ground water, at little or no cost to the bottling company, without thought for the impact to the local urban and agricultural community, then shipped a lengthy distance to a shop near you by one of only a handful of huge multinational companies who pretty much control the industry.

Hmmm, if that’s not the industrialization of water, I’m not sure what to call it.

Note: If you’re still drinking bottled water in the mistaken belief it’s better for you, you may want to go easy on the promotional hype and brush up on the facts about bottled water.

Related posts:

Creative Answers to the Question of Water
Drink Local…Water, I Mean
Who Owns Your Water
Enjoy the Luxury of Local, Drinkable Water
More Benefits to Drinking Local Water
Bottled Water Isn’t Cool
Industrial vs. Artisan Farming
Organic Eggs and Factory Farming

If you’ve seen and loved Food Inc. and Fresh, here’s another thought-provoking film about a food system in crisis — and a growing movement determined to fix it.

Vancouver’s Projecting Change Film Festival is screening the new film Ingredients as part of their Breakfast Series. And yes, breakfast will be served!

In addition to sponsoring the breakfast, Edible Vancouver‘s publisher Phil Solman will be moderating a discussion panel and giving out copies of their latest issue: Winter 2010, which itself will be fresh…off the presses.

Saturday, November 27, 2010
9:00 am
Includes breakfast sponsored by Edible Vancouver
Fifth Avenue Theatre
2110 Burrard Street, Vancouver

Tickets are $15, get $2 off when you purchase online using code FOOD001.