I found these two commentaries in last Sunday’s StarTribune to be interesting and am hoping it can jumpstart another food fight like the one on the right. 1) Greg Breining: Does the local-food movement make a difference? Not really. “Local food has many joys, especially at this time of year, but saving energy and boosting the local economy are not among them.” 2) Steve Calvin: Does the local-food movement make a difference? It sure helps. “Buying locally grown food connects us to our roots. And since you’re putting it in your mouth, wouldn’t you like to know where it comes from?”
Back to our roots, huh? I have yet to see a vegetable that doesn’t grow without roots. That’s like saying the eggs aren’t what they’re cracked up to be.
In a way the slow food and locally grown movement is a step back n time, especially for me.
My culinary career started out including a lot of things we are talking about today. Locally grown just wasn’t a buzzword for us. It is how we prepared food on a daily basis.
Like all movements this one also get’s hijacked by extremists that don’t see the reality of the impact of their goals and demands.
We can’t go back to “old ways” of growing foods, because we would limit the amount we could grow. This would lead to higher prices and a shortage of food.
America has been lucky that we never had to experience food shortages and starvation to the same degree that our countires had to.
We don’t understand what it means to starve ot having to pay outrageous prices for bare necessities.
If your stomach is full it is easy to pick and chose. Not everybody has the same luxury to do so.
I do however support education people about their choices and gve them an understanding of the current chain of food supply.
There is a lot of room for improvement in quality and taste.
Medicating livestock to beyond what is necessary is just plain wrong. The overuse of pesticides is wrong as well.
From here to going back to the “old ways’ doesn’t make any sense either.
if we just could get the politics and interest groups out of this. We actually might have a chance to come up with a common sense solution, that balances the need to feed an increasing amount of people, with the need to grow and produce wholesome foods.