Lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about food. What we eat. How it’s grown. Where it comes from. How it gets to us. It’s amazing the complex system that we have created to accomplish all of this.
Note: this is a long, rambley, sort of stream of consciousness post. You have been warned!
For most of us, our food is grown THOUSANDS of miles away, in huge monoculutures (ie only growing a single thing). It’s a hugely centralized system. The system relies on outside inputs in order to function–synthetic fertilizers and irrigation in order to grow the crops and then labor multiplying devices such as tractors, combines, balers, and probably many more that I’m unaware of in order to plant, maintain and harvest them. These devices require additional inputs of fuel. The food is then shipped to factories to be canned or frozen and then further on to our store shelves.
As a logistician by training (I’ve actually got my masters in business with a concentration in logistics) I look at this centralized and resource heavy system and see the possibility of “multiple points of failure”. For example, when most of a crop is of a single varietal and grown in the same region then the effect of poor weather, disease or pests could be significant. Also, when you have a commodity traveling over long distances you have more chances of being effected by fuel prices, trucker strikes, road/bridge maintenance issues, weather. . . well you can see what I mean.
And you can’t just flip a switch and change the system.
This is part of the reason why I believe it’s important to grow at least some of my own food. When I grow a garden I get the freshest food(and therefore tastiest and most nutritious) possible. I know exactly how the food has been treated–what variety it is, if any pesticides or fertilizers have been used. While of course my own garden can be affected by pests, disease, or poor weather–I can keep an eye on it and try to make adjustments where possible to mitigate those effects. And the distance from garden to table can be measured in steps!
Of course I can’t possibly grow everything I need. I’m on .52 acres, in a village, in the northeast. If I planted wheat (which would be a pain to harvest anyway) it would take up my entire back yard to get enough to equal a couple of bags of flower. Not an effective use of my resources. Other things–take citrus or coffee for example–simply can not be grown where I live. Growing things take time and effort–and the amount of space and labor it would take for someone to be completely self sufficient is impossible. It would just take more manpower then most of us can accomplish. Even people with extensive homesteads who produce most of what they use depend on outside inputs. Fuel. Feed. Medicines for livestock. Building materials.
I feel that even if it’s not possible to be totally self sufficient, it is worthwhile to be MORE self sufficient then most of us are today. The easiest place to start with that is with food and growing a garden.
The funny thing is, when you decide to be more self sufficient and grow your own food you wind up changing what and how you eat. You really can’t say “well, I want to keep eating exactly the same way I was before, just with food I’ve grown myself”. Gardens don’t exactly work that way. Even if you have the skills to preserve foods–canning, drying, root cellaring etc. . . well there are just times when certain things aren’t in season. Or when you have a glut of a particular item.
What I’ve realized is that when you are cooking from your garden and eating seasonally your menu really does change. I always want to try to use what I have in the garden. I spent all that time and effort growing it, I don’t want it to go to waste! So when the cucumbers are in season I wind up eating cucumber spears sprinkled with salt as a side dish, putting cucumber slices in a sandwich, tossing together a marinated cucumber salad or even sauteing cucumbers in some butter and serving warm with salt and pepper . All of these things are good–but not all of them are great. For example the sauteed cucumbers are good–but not good enough that I’d ever bother going to the store and paying money to buy cucumbers just for that preparation. But when I’ve got a lot and I need a vegetable side dish it is perfectly acceptable.
Isn’t that an odd distinction? There are perfectly good foods out there that have gone out of fashion simply because they weren’t quite good ENOUGH to bother with once you were no longer growing your own.
Here’s another example. When turnips are in season I will eat them raw, sliced with a bit of salt. I will also shred them and make a cole slaw or pickled salad out of them. I’d never bother buying a fresh turnip just to do either.
On the flip side there are some things that are so expensive to buy in the store that you save them only for certain presentation and uses. Many fruits fall into this category. When you have to buy fresh pears at the store you are either going to eat them fresh to savor their “pear-ness”, or maybe do a special dessert like a red wine braised pear.
You probably aren’t going to make pear jam. Or pear chutney. Or pickled pears. Or “pearsauce”.
But when you have a pear tree, well, suddenly you have a wealth of pears–and you can turn some to more mundane uses. The same with figs, raspberries, blueberries and more. I mean really–would you ever buy enough blueberries at the store to make blueberry JUICE? That would be some really, really expensive juice! But grow your own (or even pick them at a pick your own place) and suddenly it becomes a reasonable endeavor.
I know this is sort of disjointed, but I’m really just “thinking aloud”. I’d love to hear from all of you. What do you think?
We can’t flip a switch and change THE system – but we can change OUR system. Who we buy our food from. How much we buy (vs grow ourselves). What kinds of food we buy. The questions we ask about our food before spending our dollars on it.
This is a great post. I’m glad you’re asking the hard questions and thinking the tough thoughts.
I am wondering how you decide what vegetables you are going to grow. For example, turnips. Did you ever buy them at the store? What did you use them for? Why did you decide to start growing them?
I find we tend to grow certain things for certain purposes and that’s all we use them for. We love dill pickles and that’s about the only reason we grow cucumbers. We have our own blueberry bushes and we also go to pick-your-own places, but we would never make blueberry juice. That would seem like a waste to us, as we have no reason to start drinking blueberry juice. They are frozen for pies and other desserts and to eat fresh on cereal. Lately we have also tried drying them, which we also like on breakfast cereal.
On the other hand, we like summer squash, but we rarely if ever buy it at the store. We eat it fresh from the garden, or we don’t eat it.
I don’t think we change the way we eat because of the garden. We decide what to grow in the garden based on what we like to eat.
I keep hoping very year I will make the time to grow stuff, but I simply have not made the time. However what I do adhere to is frozen assets. Purchasing food on sale, stocking up, and utilizing what I purchase. I have committed myself to better management of what I am able to do and push myself culinary and in nutrition. I only buy reduced/clearance fruit, chicken under $1 a pound, etc. I have found my resources are able to meet my budget. Another endeavor is the coop for produce, this has been away to contribute to the community, and again pushing myself in culinary skills and nutrition. It has been healthful and rewarding. Jenn your feedback from the blog has guided me in my Frugal endeavors, from that I am able to branch off from. Home gardening is fantastic and starting with what we can do is the first step. I just read an article this evening on illness from bagged salad, eating salad from your garden reduces these types of issues.