10.16.2011

7 Where in the World

Today is Blog Action Day and World Food Day. As I reflected on what I should write about I thought about the comments I have gotten lately when I talk about what we are doing to reduce the impact of our food. The most common is 'I don't really want to know where my food comes from because I think it will scare me'. So true....because it will scare you.

We as a society spend a lot of time researching the car we want to buy, the school we will send our children to, we inspect houses before we buy them but we don't do any of this for the food we consume. The majority of people do not know where their food comes from. Sure they may read that little sticker and see the country of origin but that means very little in the grand scheme of things. You see that innocent sticker on your banana/cucumber/orange and see that it is from Peru/Argentina/Mexico and most likely don't really think about what that means. The transportation, different farming practices, wages and treatment of workers and the quality...oh the lack of quality.  Not saying that goods from other regions can't be good but there is nothing compared to locally grown.Why do we continue to pay for goods from other regions when it is better for the environment and way tastier to buy local?

This year I have tried to focus on our food consumption. We found a local market that we love and who I feel comfortable asking questions to (he tractor tweets and everything!). We cut back on fast food, processed food, bought more organic and made more of our food from scratch. We looked at the quality of the food we were eating, looked at the impact of our food, I switched to almond milk (more on that later) and cut back on the amount of food waste we were producing. The only 2 things left to do are build a bigger backyard garden and find a local sustainable meat farmer.

What have you done to reduce your food footprint?

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7 comments:

  1. stopping by for the blog hop! now following

    http://livinthemommylife.blogspot.com

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  2. We have become a lot like you. Joining a CSA, getting our meat exclusively from there, and our eggs exclusively from our backyard chickens. If you haven't tried getting chickens? You should, it's SO awesome. I'm a horrendous farmer (I've managed to kill almost everything) but I'm learning. Our backyard garden will be about 3 times as big next year so hopefully I can make something grow! Totally a new follower - love the blog!

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  3. I don't even know if we are allowed to have backyard chickens...something to look into for sure!

    Thanks for stopping by!

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  4. Hello. I am a new GFC follower from the Get Connected Tuesday blog hop.

    I have always been fairly green but have been moving more and more that way over the past few years. Our food has been one of the last things to change even though it's one of the ones that I've thought of for years. We're working on it little by little. I'm finally getting my "Oh, but the organic blah blah blah is three times the price!" husband to start choosing better options as well.

    http://theantijunecleaver.blogspot.com/

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  5. Great post! eating local is so important!
    following you from the Tuesday hop.
    www.pmaynardwrites.blogspot.com

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  6. As you know we are trying to live waste-free, we compost, recycle, buy only organic and/or locally sourced, I have recently gone vegan and my husband has drastically decreased his animal product consumption (he has agreed not to drink milk...yay), buy organic/eco-friendly clothing and toys for my daughter (only what she needs), I am still nursing, I wash my hair with ACV and baking soda....and the list goes on! And, you know people will look at what we do and cringe b/c they think it would be too hard to do all these things. It is not hard for me, I love living this way. it is not a chore!

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  7. More and more our world is becoming centered around convienence and with that everyone wants things fast. So to a lot of people I bet having to make your own shampoo or having to separate trash, recycling and compost is 'too much'. It is silly really. Because it takes a whole 5 seconds!

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