Food and More Food

I was pondering whether I should discuss my thoughts about eating animals and animal products with my dear vegetarian and vegan friends. Why would I even eat meat? Of course I am thinking here about all my FB and blog postings about local foods, sustainablility, and especially that character Joe Salatin at PolyFace Farms. www.polyfacefarms.com, Barbara Kingslover, and Michael Pollan.

Maybe nobody cares or is asking such a thing, but I will tell you anyway. lol I was a vegetarian for over 10 years. Macrobiotic/vegan for about 5. Diet for a Small Planet made the only sense to me when all I knew was factory farming. Now I know there is an alternative. (Ethical vegans forgive me and stop reading). I am raising alternatives.

When I started thinking about respectful agriculture and sustainability and my climate, I couldn't figure out how to keep my children only in local protein, esp during the long winters, without looking to animals as a protein source, including eggs. I decided to respect the animals that I might eat, and yet limit the amount of meat we did eat.

It's one thing to be vegan and eat locally in a temperate climate. I was at Whole Foods the other day and I was again floored by the fact that every single fresh vegetable was imported from so many thousands of miles away. China, Peru, Chlie, Israel, California topped the list. That is a whole heap of damaging fossil fuels. On a recent trip to a Florida Whole Foods, the produce mamager could not find one item that was grown in Florida! "I know we have some. I guess not today." He showed me some locally produced (Miami) salsa. Of course, I ended up finding some local food at the Farmer's Market in Orlando.

My chickens live on my land; my children walk to collect the eggs. It's only a few weeks until pea planting time. I still have some butternut squashes from my garden, plus some potatoes and squashes from local farms that I am storing. There are even a couple of cabbages left, although they won't last much longer. I am hiding a few bags of blueberries and strawberries in the freezer, hoping to get us to March, when I go Fl and bring some back from my fav farmer's markets there. (Is car or plane travel an issue regarding carbon footprints? Yep. But it's not China or Columbia).

I do need to buy foods that are not local. We just can't grow & store enough in the summer to last us the winter yet. But my birds, well, they offer us excellent protein, in one form or another, all year long. They do not eat GMO corn or soy. They eat grass and are supplemented with organic feed from VT when the snow is too thick and the ground frozen. Although I am always amazed at what they do find at times. They also love the stored sunflower seeds we grew this summer, and the extra pumpkins and butternut squash from our gardens.

Please. We aren't doing super-great. I have Annie's Shell and coffee and olive oil and imported wine and more in my cupboards. We get take out Chinese or Pizza every Firday night. I have tempeh and tofu in my fridge from goodness knows where. Yet I do want to consider where my food comes from, and I want to feel awed by what it took to get it from ground to my (reusable lol) shopping bag. Feeding the whole world is a big, honking deal. :)

I can talk all day about this if anyone wants to. :) Check out Animal Vegetable, Miracle for more info. Urban Farmer is another fabulous book I recently discovered. It is by Novella Carpenter and is wonderful. Novella also has a wonderful blog.