It started this year, I think. I’m not really sure. It’s a hard thing to pin down and say, “this is when it began,” but it’s been on my mind for a while. I’m sure that it started in part because I listen to NPR and other liberal media. I’m sure your all on pins and needles now, so I should just come out with it.
I’ve become increasingly concerned with where my food comes from.
There. I said it. I feel a lot better. I’d like to explain a little bit of what I mean by that, but it’s a hard things to fully explain because it been growing in my mind for a while now. The best I can do is offer a few “dots” and hope that they will all connect to help you see the whole picture. This might take a few posts, but this first “dot” might be the best place to start.
- I spent most of my growing up years in Wisconsin in a town of 7000 people. Everywhere I went I would drive past farms filled with fields of cows, pigs, corn, soybeans, alfalfa, wheat, oats, and the list goes on. I became so familiar with seeing those fields grow all season. Near the end of my time living in Wisconsin I could read the corn pretty well and know how long till the harvest. I became used to the growing cycles.Since I’ve moved to Colorado, my interaction to farm land is limited to driving through the eastern plains as I leave the state. I miss seeing those farms. I miss the smell of agriculture. Now, the closest thing to cattle grazing that I see is on the rare occasion that I stop in a fast food restaurant. OK, I know, that wasn’t fair; it just sat there in my mind, I had to let it out. When I lived in Wisconsin I held a sense of pride about living where I was. I felt like I knew where my food was coming from. I realize that most of my meals didn’t come from the produce grown on those farms, but there was something about living in that type of community that made me feel that way.
I started to look at tags on the fruit and vegetables I was buying from the grocery store. Have you ever noticed them? Avocados from Ecuador. Bananas from Honduras. Apples from Washington. Oranges from Mexico. Take a look the next time you go grocery shopping. Where did the food in the store come from? (warning: potential liberal thoughts ahead) Then I started to think of the amount of energy expended to get that banana into the store. After thinking about those thoughts for a while I start to think about the “freshness factor” of food that’s been trucked all the way from Honduras. Those thoughts lead to thoughts about the chemicals used to help the banana stay fresh until it reaches the store. And then my thoughts start to spiral out of control because I really like bananas.
In light of all this going on in my mind, I realized that I couldn’t just think about these things any more. I needed to start doing something about it. So last Saturday I stopped at a farmers market. I’ve been looking for one for a few weeks and finally realized that there was one near our apartment. Here’s what I bought:
4 ears of sweet corn
1 head of lettuce
2 yellow squash
1 lb of green beans
1 eggplant
4 peaches
Purchased for less then $12, and all grown in Colorado. I like that.
I think I’ve written enough for now. I’ll try to add a few dots in the weeks to come.
What do you think? Am I going hippie-liberal in my thinking? Is the thought of eating local food ridiculous?
Where there are gardens and bicycles... 
12 comments
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September 9, 2007 at 8:37 am
Gabe
Utopian as it may sound, it’s still a good idea.
My current take on it is: ‘Buy as local as possible, as often as possible.’
While wandering around Whole Foods yesterday with my parents, I was amazed to discover the variety and amount of food products that they carried that have been produced in Colorado. My daily experience told me that food has to come from halfway across the planet, but the reality is that it can come from halfway across the state.
This doesn’t always work, as seasons change and the harvests shift to other areas, but as this happens – if we are conscientious – we can try to buy from, say, Georgia instead of Tahiti.
So, now that I’ve supported your point, let me put some reasoning behind it. I’m no out and out patriot, so you’ll not hear me say BUY USA! or Always Buy Colorado! but I think that, at their heart, these statements understand locality, and community.
My favorite way to boil down our purpose here on Earth is “Love God, Love People” We love God by being caretakers of the creation that he’s given us, and producing from it (this doesn’t mean you have to be a farmer, trust me, someone’s running the website for Cure Organic Farm [http://www.cureorganicfarm.com/] in Boulder) but care-taking means everything from watering your flowerpot to shoveling your neighbors’ sidewalk to helping the local litter-patrol. And producing means (to me at least) taking your generated wealth, and investing it back into your community.
Why so local? Why such an emphasis on community? Well, I said ‘Love God, Love People’ and community is where we love people. I have nothing against going to a place in need (from wars to famine, it all needs worked on) but the people that you live near, they are the ones that you can most immediately effect. They are the ones that see you get the paper in your boxers. They are the ones that hear your arguments through the walls, or your phone conversations on the 2.5ghz wireless signal. They are the ones that smelled that wonderful chili you had for dinner last night and, however briefly, wondered if they’d get a taste. You are the one that sees them trudge off to work in tattered, paint covered jeans and knows how long their day is going to be. You are the one that hears their car struggle to start when they’re going to get groceries. You are the one that found their dog two blocks away and knew that it didn’t belong there. Your lives are immediate to each others. How better to love people than to put a robe on, lower your voice, invite them for dinner, offer them a beer after work, run them to the store (or walk with them [si possible]), and scoop up that yapping puppy and tote it home?
So what does this have to do with vegetables again? Well, the more local you buy, the more local the money stays, and the more you help your neighbors. Whether they know it or not.
In closing, Love God, Love People, Buy Local, and please don’t get the paper in your boxers…
rant, over.
September 9, 2007 at 4:56 pm
itiskyle
To drop some conservative propaganda on this issue…
Our economy is global. It’s something that I think the liberal side of America needs to accept. Stephen poses a good question about how much energy is spent to transport this food to Colorado, but I’d ask in return, how much energy is spent to get oranges to come out of Colorado? The world has found it to be more cost-effective to raise oranges where they grow readily and transport them than to simply raise them where they are wanted. And I have to agree with the world. To use an analogy that may not go anywhere with a more liberal audience, if God has gifted you with the ability to teach but you are living in a place where all that’s needed is mercy, perhaps you need to take the gifting you were given elsewhere. Many times I’ve seen people take what they were good at and disregard it for what is readily needed locally, such as a carpenter doing a poor job of teaching third grade sunday school because the church told him there’s no need for a carpenter in the kingdom of God. Relating this to produce may be a bit of a stretch, but I believe that, just how the carpenter should take his gifting to those who need it, the land and climate gifted with oranges should fill the world with those oranges and us here in colorado should produce whatever Colorado is good at producing, and then let those good at moving things move them to where they are needed.
As to the closing point of the post before mine, yes, the more local you buy the more local the money stays, but the sign of a healthy economy is lots of money changing hands. The more money moves the more the capitalist idea promotes more production (and consumption) of products, including more and more products bought from and consumed by the globally poor who need the economic exchange far more than anyone here does. There can be an unhealthy element of commerce when a country imports more than it exports across all the different types of widgets, but when export and import levels (including services and such) are roughly the same an economy is more healthy the more money moves. While it may be possible for Colorado to only suffer on (or import) a few products, the more that small communities are economically self-sufficient the more it hurts poorer economies. Imagine if the whole world decided rice was easy to grow so we’d take no more rice from Indonesia (if that’s where rice comes from). You’d be left with 500 million Indonesians stuffed with rice and dying from a complete economic lack of every other type of good. Even when we see a local economy as beneficial to us, it’s us seeing us foremost because, well, we’re here. We talk to each other. Eat together. Play together. Laugh together. And we forget that, because we’ve found ways around encouraging global exchange, there’s a million people trying to rebuild houses destroyed by a monsoon with roofs of rice or clothe their children with rice-skirts, rice-jackets, and rice-tophats.
there’s ~400 angles I wanted to take this, but I’m pressed for time, so those are the 2 that I chose. Hope they make sense.
September 11, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Gabe
I’m so totally going to pick my fight on this one, so forgive me ahead of time if you will…
“but the sign of a healthy economy is lots of money changing hands. The more money moves the more the capitalist idea promotes more production (and consumption) of products”
The capitalist idea promotes more production (and consumption) of products.
Capitalism thrives on making more stuff and selling more stuff.
Umm, what’s the point in making more stuff and getting more stuff?
Aren’t we suppose to be not focused on stuff?
Now I must admit that my job puts me smack in the middle of the capitalist world, and that I continue to work there. But I think this also qualifies me to speak about the nature of that world.
Companies are always talking about expanding their market. The first thing they look for is market share. To increase your market share you have to take business from a competitor. Once you’ve monopolized (or gone as far as regulators will allow), there is no more market share to take. The next step is to either get involved in another market or create a market. Usually a company will take on a neighboring market. Target, for example, moved into grocery, now we have Super Targets. Creating a new market on the other hand, usually involves heavy marketing to get people to think that they NEED something. However you spin it, EVERY company that does business on the capitalist idea is ALWAYS trying to expand.
BUY MORE!
But what about need? What happens in a world where our needs are already met? What happens is the unending creation of markets. Now, one could argue that this is the inventors paradise, and that our world will profit greatly from the things invented to create business. But I argue that once our needs are met, we become more and more focused on our wants. And that, as flawed humans, we will in the end succumb to them.
I ‘need’ more, so you should make more.
What we have here is an unending cycle of production and consumption.
The Capitalists’ ideal.
But really shouldn’t we focus on need?
what comes right after the bit I quoted above is this:
“including more and more products bought from and consumed by the globally poor who need the economic exchange far more than anyone here does”
The poor are in need, and I want a Bravia HDTV.
I could spend the cash on the TV and know that a small amount is paying the wage of a poor worker somewhere. OR I could, after appeasing my own needs, take everything else and give it directly to the poor. I have thusly eliminated the middle man, the other middle man, the corporate machine, The Man, Nike, Sony, Globo Gym, and Orville Redenbacher from their capitalistically ‘entitled’ cut of the dough.
You may have figured out by now that I am a former capitalist.
If we go by a ‘need’ based system, the idea of locality becomes much more sensical. Hello Neighbor, I have something you need, you have something I need, let’s trade to appease our needs. Look, we have extra, OtherNeighbor had a fire and has need of our extra.
Sure, in this day and age, a trade based system sounds archaic, but it’s really more community friendly.
Sure, some things are produced better in certain areas of the world, and in those cases I support trade beyond the local, of course I do, it’d kinda be dumb to say that Coloradan’s have to go without olives for ever more because they don’t grow well here. That’s why I said “Buy as local as possible, as often as possible.” there’s two ‘as possible’ statements in there. Else the idea would be irrational.
I know what you’re thinking… community, commune, communist… social, social networking, socialist… friggin hippie…
Yeah, I guess I’m becoming something of the sort.
*sigh*
C’est la vie.
September 11, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Gabe
I believe this is what is referred to as a Hi-Jacking.
Sorry Steve.
September 12, 2007 at 7:08 am
cuyler
i’ll be honest. i don’t really care. do what ya feel ya need to do, and i’m going to have no compulsion to argue with you. i don’t care what people buy or feel they need to buy, just don’t try to guilt me into it or anything like that. maybe i like hormones in my meat (mmm. hormones.) or preservative cured bananas from honduras. i honestly couldn’t care less where you buy food. just buy food, or i reckon you won’t last long.
to quote my best gal pal: “Can’t we just stop drawing lines in the sand and get along as human beings for once?” i’m amazed at the ways people choose to divide themselves. not have disagreements, but divide themselves. it’s retarded.
but of course Jesus won’t let you join his club unless you do buy local. or maybe he won’t let you in if you don’t stimulate global economy. he certainly won’t let you in if you’re gay, and i think that’s something we can all shake hands on.
and if you’re in america, there is no way you can be an ex-capitalist. the fact that our economy runs on the buying and selling of goods and services, if you use goods and services, you’re a capitalist. you might not like it, like how i might not like being so crackery sometimes, but that’s how it works.
September 13, 2007 at 9:35 am
scochenour
I really wish I would have taken the time to sit and respond as each of you commented, but because I was lazy my comments will probably run together. I’ll respond to ideas rather than to people.
“This doesn’t always word, as seasons change and the harvests shift to other areas, but as this happens – if we are conscientious – we can buy from, say, Georgia instead of Tahiti.” -gabe
“Imagine if the whole world decided rice was easy to grow so we’d take no more rice from Indonesia…” -kyle
“I hate everyone.” -cuyler
This comment might drift into the capitalism comment I’ll make next, but stay with me. Watch out Kyle and Cuyler, here comes some hippie-babble. What if that earth was actually a living thing? What if we could learn from the earth about the foods that we could consume? Let’s take rice as an example. Rice doesn’t not grow here in Colorado. So what if the earth was saying that those who lived in this part of the country shouldn’t eat rice? We can sustain our selves without rice, can’t we? Kyle, your comment about the Indonesians being stuffed with rice and a complete lack of everything else might be true, but I would venture to say that that would only be because we (as capitalist consumers) told them that we needed their rice and they produced it for us. And Gabe, what if you made the decision to go without oranges all together because they weren’t readily available localy? I listen to a podcast called Speaking of Faith from American Public Media. Earlier this summer there was an episode called The Ethics of Eating, the host spoke with a lady who decided to only eat local. She lamented over the fact that was faced with giving up some of the foods that she had grown to love because they weren’t available locally.
“…the land and climate gifted with oranges should fill the world with those oranges and us here in colorado should produce whatever Colorado is good at producing, and then lot those good at moving things move them to where they are needed.” -kyle
“The capitalist idea promotes more production (and comsumption) of products. Capitalism thrives on making more stuff and selling more stuff.” -Gabe
“and if you’re in america, there is no way you can be an ex-capitalist. the fact that our economy runs on the buying and selling of goods and service, if you use good and services, you’re a capitalist.” -cuyler
One thing I’ve learned is that capitalists don’t play well with others. Capitalists believe that everyone else will be better off as capitalists. The problem is that the whole world isn’t capitalist, but those who are trying to force it on others. Maybe Indonesia doesn’t want to be capitalistic, but we tell them that we want their rice. What surprised me was that the most socialist statement didn’t come from Gabe, but Kyle when he said: “…the land and climate gifted with oranges should fill the world with those oranges and us here in Colorado should produce whatever Colorado is good at producing, and then lot those good at moving things move them to where they are needed.” Did you realize you said this? There is a problem though. This type of thinking only works when everyone is willing to be a part of it. This is why I agree with Culyer that if you are living with in our economy, then you have to participate in the capitalism of it. I think the only exception to this would be for a group of people to be given legal separation from the state to live a self-sustained existence. Look at the Amish; they seem to be doing alright with that.
I think that’s it for now.
cheers
September 14, 2007 at 7:24 am
cuyler
this mostly doesn’t address anything you addressed, but i’ve held to the idea for awhile that there’s a good probability the earth is a living organism as we are. well, not as we are, but more like some incredibly complex plant. i’ve never mentioned it because people automatically assume gaia religion and stop listening, and since i think Jesus might not have actually been God, i feel to far out in the “christian heretic” field that i try to avoid going any deeper in there.
and kyle probably won’t read your response unless you email him to let him know you responded. that’s how he rolls.
September 21, 2007 at 10:36 am
itiskyle
Thankfully Cuyler clued me in to more having been said, so I’m loosely here to respond, but like Steve said, it’s been too long and there’s too much rolled together, so here’s something loosely related instead.
Andrew Carnegie held to a philosophy that I very much like that some of you may very well hate. Rather, he held to a few philosophies simultaneously that produce great things when combined. First philosophy: pay your worker as little as possible. Second philosophy: give away everything. He believed that if he paid his workers fair compensation then their excess wages would go to buy beer (now I’m paraphrasing him even more loosely), but if you withheld their wages but in turn gave those wages back to the community, the workers could build themselves libraries. He plays on a few principles that are somewhat objectionable here, such as that libraries are better than beer and that the common man cannot make good choices as to what to spend his money on. At the same time, we know that communism doesn’t do well because each individuals productivity has very little to do with their actual pay, so why be productive. And by the same token, giving does little because, as an individual, I can’t afford to fund a library, but I could probably get myself pretty trashed Friday night, so I’ll do that instead. Carnegie’s ideas were hated by many people, but they actually got stuff done and (if you believe libraries and other forms of arts and society count as such) produced a better world.
To relate this, loosely, to the bulk of these responses. If man is left to take fiscal responsibility for those around him, in particular when “around him” extends to the truly poor of less blessed nations, man finds himself looking at his plasma tv. If Indonesia were left to produce their own economies and to try and use these to feed their people, prostitution is probably the only one they could create. A capitalist doesn’t look at how the world ideally works. If the world worked in ideals I’d be communist, where we could all produce to the best of our abilities and share equally and no one would be in want. But the capitalist practice is to ask themselves what really happens out there in the world when different principles are applied, and what reality shows is a world that’s largely starving to death, with the poverty centered around the least free governments. In a final thought of what I know was a disjointed response, I’m not a true capitalist either, because a true capitalist would support solving poverty only through creation of industry at impoverished places, and while I do like that idea (teach a man to fish vs. giving him a fish), I also support charitable organizations and their work, which does nothing from a capitalist standpoint.
September 21, 2007 at 11:57 am
Shannon
Wow.
Have you read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver? I’m reading it right now and it’s exactly what I’d have said. America’s food culture is dying…think of the food culture of Italy, China, places that eat what grows where they live when it’s in season. Food means more.
And man, capitalism or no capitalism, wasting gas to transport mangoes from South America to Arvada is not good stewardship on somebody’s part. When capitalism becomes waste for the sake of generating economy, it’s not ethical and it’s not damn well worth it.
Cuyler, you are aware that one of my life goals is growing my own food on my own farm and being self-sustaining, right? Cause man, your arse will be digging potato rows if you stick with me. Just a heads up.
September 21, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Shannon
Oh, and I was referring to religious war and prejudice when I talked about lines in the sand. Carefully choosing where you spend your food money is the right kind of change to be making, and certainly shouldn’t be offensive to anyone.
September 24, 2007 at 12:49 pm
itiskyle
I understand your point about wasting gas to transport mangoes from South America to here as not being good stewardship, and I agree, it’s not good use of the natural resources we were given. I just feel that, on the other side, having gas and not using it to transport food we can easily grow in mass amounts here (with the help of our hormones and chemicals even) to the people that need it to live, or using it to bring what they can make here to give them some sort of an economy is even worse stewardship, as it’s taking one thing we are placed as stewards of, the earth, and putting it below another thing we’re stewards of, our fellow humans, and in particular the poor and hungry.
Jesus said “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me. (matthew 25:40)” While we’re not supposed to tarnish the earth or disregard it, Jesus never said that what we did to the earth we did to him, and when asked what the greatest commandment was Jesus said “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ ; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. (luke 10:27, also in matthew and mark)” Jesus summed up the law in two commands, and neither had to do with the earth. Again, there’s a ton more than just that in the Bible, and I truly believe we are supposed to care for the earth, as God set it up with crop rotations and placing adam and eve in charge of the garden and such, it just makes me sad when I see people placing the earth over humans, letting people go hungry and whatnot for environmental attitudes. That’s all I have to say about that.
September 24, 2007 at 1:21 pm
scochenour
Shannon- “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” is on my list. I’m working through “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan right now. I’m digging that. If you can get Cuyler to dig potato rows please let me know. I might even pay to see that.
Kyle- If we were in a position where oil was being wasted because it was not being used then I agree that it would be a good stewardship to use it to transport food. But that simply isn’t the case. Also, we might be able to artificially extend the life of some food, but it is rarely without cost. And I am in agreement with you that placing things above people isn’t what God desires. So there.