I was catching up on things here, and spotted the thread in Books (one Straw...). Not to paraphrase, but just discuss the concept of growing/eating locally.
It is easy to get caught up and/or confused about foods (foraging) what is native to your area, and what CAN grow. Many of our regular fruits/veg are imports, brought with varying groups, mainly Euro. I brush with this more than some here with my 18th c side, and what would have been grown where. Most of our common herbs are imports (Euro, and back further Mediteranian). Some culinary and medicinals are so common we think of them as native! Honey bees came with the 1st English settlers.
Wheat is a Euro import, and we would have a hard time without it. Interesting some grown here to ship back in 18th c. This is the area S of St Louis on the IL side, that was a bread basket for France.
Just as peoples through the ages, we are constantly testing our tastes and limits of growing. Fun isn't it!
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rainbowgardener
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It is interesting when you start to look at the history of people and their migrations and what plants and animals they brought with them.
When thinking about growing food, I don't get as attached to what was originally native, but what can be grown in my area with minimal inputs, but not invasively. I preferably like things that will self-seed and grow themselves, without me adding anything but compost and without a lot of fussing/ irrigating etc. But not something that is going to pop up in my neighbor's yard and start taking things over.
When thinking about buying food/ produce, I preferably want organic AND locally grown. In the summer, I try to only eat produce from my CSA farm, that I helped take care of and know is very local and organic. In winter however, if I have to choose between organic and local grown, I choose organic. I think it is more important to support organic farming.
Transporting produce by truckload can be relatively energy efficient.
Sustainable eating can get complicated. I only relatively recently started eating quinoa, as a very high protein, nutritious grain, very healthy for vegetarians like me, with complete protein. But then I just read that really we in US shouldn't be buying quinoa. So far it is all imported from South America. Because it got very popular here, the price has been driven up, making it harder for poor people in Peru and Bolivia (especially urban poor) where it was a staple to afford it and leading to a push for more industrial large scale production, which is environmentally degrading to the fragile altaplano environment where it is grown... sigh...
When thinking about growing food, I don't get as attached to what was originally native, but what can be grown in my area with minimal inputs, but not invasively. I preferably like things that will self-seed and grow themselves, without me adding anything but compost and without a lot of fussing/ irrigating etc. But not something that is going to pop up in my neighbor's yard and start taking things over.
When thinking about buying food/ produce, I preferably want organic AND locally grown. In the summer, I try to only eat produce from my CSA farm, that I helped take care of and know is very local and organic. In winter however, if I have to choose between organic and local grown, I choose organic. I think it is more important to support organic farming.
Transporting produce by truckload can be relatively energy efficient.
Sustainable eating can get complicated. I only relatively recently started eating quinoa, as a very high protein, nutritious grain, very healthy for vegetarians like me, with complete protein. But then I just read that really we in US shouldn't be buying quinoa. So far it is all imported from South America. Because it got very popular here, the price has been driven up, making it harder for poor people in Peru and Bolivia (especially urban poor) where it was a staple to afford it and leading to a push for more industrial large scale production, which is environmentally degrading to the fragile altaplano environment where it is grown... sigh...
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rainbowgardener
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- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b