Local Food

Eating locally has become a very popular goal for people who are striving to reduce their carbon footprint. Eating local also provides a lot of opportunity to reduce plastic consumption. When we were living in Canada, we were members of a CSA. This involved paying a flat fee to the organic farmer that was operating the guild. Members were given a wooden bushel basket to take back and forth to the farm gate each week. The weekly harvest was on display in the cold room with explicit written instructions on how much of each vegetable to take.

Meat eaters can also reduce plastic packaging when they eat local, I think. Butchers paper is still widely used for a variety of purposes, but I am not sure if it is still used by your local butcher. Some delis use something that looks like it’s just paper, but is actually a combination of paper and plastic.

If you want to try some alternative form of meat storage, I’m sure there are farmers who would provide you with the raw material in a cardboard box. I grew up on a beef farm and that is how our meat came back from the butcher. My parents placed it all into plastic freezer bags. Actually, I remember being given that job in my later childhood, including the job of sucking the excess air out of the bags with a straw before closing them with twist-ties. Now that I am not living on a farm, I just buy fresh meat on an as needed basis. If you want to try wrapping meat for the freezer using paper, here is a How To Page.

My recent move to Africa has required quite a change in diet in order to eat local food. Forgoing unpasteurized milk as a precaution was a bummer. Eating lots of couscous has been great. The only hiccup was finding out that we didn’t actually know how to make it correctly.

One day, the kids came home from school with some couscous that their teacher had prepared. It was vastly superior to what we had been making over the previous month or two. Catherine spent the evening reading about the tradition process and eventually gave it a try. The result was met with much approval. Eating a healthy local diet has been very easy for us so far. Our pots and pans are even made locally.