Ruth Heppner
Have you ever taken note of the sources of our food at the grocery store? Have you thought about what all is included in the price of that can of pineapple or peaches or even the pinto beans and tomatoes? It might surprise you to find that many of the common foods we enjoy and can be grown locally are actually grown and packaged in distant lands, and that the cost of storage and travel is a large part of the price we pay.
Does that matter to us? Do we care about how these imported foods were raised? Do we know whether their nutritional value compares favourably with what is produced locally? What about the chemicals used? Or the working conditions and wages of the farm labourers?
In the past, our parents did not have access to strawberries or fresh tomatoes in January. For those of us with a rural upbringing, fresh fruits and vegetables in January or food out of a tin were not on the daily menu. Almost everything we ate was sourced in our back yards or from friends and neighbours. We ate what we could grow or obtain close to home.
For quite a few years now, at our house, we have tried hard to practice this type of food procurement. We have put a lot of energy into the planting and harvesting of our own garden. In spring, we enjoy fresh lettuce and spinach and eagerly await each fresh vegetable as it becomes available from the garden or farmers’ market. Our menu includes an untold number of dishes created out of what is in season.
Summer and fall, of course, bring much more variety to our table. How many recipes have you tried that include strawberries, saskatoons or rhubarb? And if you have too much of one kind of fruit, it will store just fine in your freezer for later use. How can I use up my bountiful supply of zucchini, or beets, or Swiss chard? Again, they can be prepared in a multitude of ways. And if it seems your diet is a bit skewed with all those vegetables, your body can handle it. After all, next season the choices will be different.
Winter is a bit more of a challenge to stick to local foods, but if you have canned or frozen your summer excess, or if you have a place where your carrots, onions, potatoes and squash can be kept cool for weeks after the harvest, you can leave those items off your grocery list.
The question of where our food comes from is important to us. We also think using our resources to promote and practice a seasonal menu based on local availability of food choices is important because in the wider picture, these choices impact our environment, climate change and global food supplies.
Yes, we do purchase some of those off-season foods, but the variety in our menus and the nutrition we receive has not suffered from ‘eating in season’ from gardens close to home.
My challenge to you -- next time you eye that basket of strawberries or apples imported from thousands of miles away, give some thought to the questions I raised. Maybe, just maybe, it’s a place to start.
