You deserve it.

How can you get to local food, or how can you make it come to you? Don't worry, I can help.

In Guelph, we have a number of ways to connect yourself with the local bounty:

Garden Fresh Box is a program out of the Guelph Community Health Centre. Anyone can sign up and for $15 or $20 you can pick up a box every month, filled with locally grown, seasonal produce. They even include a recipe sheet for ideas!

I've already chatted about the Guelph Farmer's Market  (Saturdays 7am to 12pm) and St. Jacob's Market (Thursdays and Saturdays 7am to 3:30pm). Bring extra money.

Next spring, you can join a community supported agriculture initiative (CSA) like the one offered by Ignatius Farms just north of Guelph. They own the land, you reap the benefits! This one is more costly ($425 for a small plot and $695 for a large one) but the plot is yours for the entire 20 week growing period. If you spend more than $20 on produce each week at the store, this might be right for you.

If you are in the mood for a one-off, local meal, make a reservation at Borealis Grille or The Woolwich Arrow

In Niagara, my other home:

Enjoy a plate from Pan Cafe or Treadwell. Many of the wineries across the Niagara region showcase local food as well. It's well worth it. Trust me.

Our Farmer's Market is open THREE days a week; Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, 6am to 3pm. BOOM! (I'm a bit homesick these days).

The Niagara Local Food Co-op really turns my crank. It's similar to the Garden Fresh Box program, only you order as you wish online and you can choose what items you'd like to pick up. Brace yourself, there's not only produce, but meats, nuts, herbs and maple butter tarts! You'd better believe I'm getting in on this when I get back in town.

So there are a number of options for access to local food, from growing it yourself to having it prepped and delivered right to your table. No more excuses, be aware of your surroundings and dig in.
:)

Winter Wonderland

I've never seen this guy before, but I like
his style.
http://www.canadiandesignresource.ca

If you're thinking it would be too difficult to maintain a locavore diet throughout the winter, then you need to know;
What's Available in Ontario?

I know there are still some delicate, typically-summer produce on this list and this is because they come from the greenhouses. I'm wary of this, it seems like cheating. Personally, I don't need to buy fresh tomatoes and cucumber during the winter, but maybe some of us just can't live without year round gazpacho, who knows?

Contrary to what Google thought of me while researching, I understand that the dreaded greenhouse effect is not a result of greenhouse farming (it's surprisingly difficult to find information about actual greenhouses in relation to the environment).  However, those structures do need power to maintain a proper temperature for growing these delicate foods, usually at the cost of some non-sustainable resource. This is straying a bit from local food, but I feel sustainable food is just as, if not more important.

So blanch and freeze your beans and can your tomatoes. Are you concerned that  processing will destroy some of the nutrient value? That's fair, some of the nutrients may be depleted, but some may increase; such as
iron¹.

Here's something interesting as a counter-balance; a greenhouse heated by the all natural, sustainable power of... chickens!




Sources:
[1] Review: Nutritional comparison of fresh, frozen, and canned fruits and vegetables II. Vitamin A and carotenoids, vitamin E, minerals and fibre. from: http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/filelibrary/1214/36518.pdf

Thought for Food

Here is an interesting read: Some Benefits and Drawbacks of Local Food Systems by Jules Perry

He's English, and this article is mainly referencing British evidence and policy, but some themes hold true around the world.  I know most of us are busy people and sometimes we're put off pages and pages of black and white text without pretty photos. Ok, maybe that's just me. Well I took one for the team and summed up some of the better points below:

http://www.cartoonmovement.com/

• First off, our food system is flawed. Too many people are hungry and too many people are obese at the same time
• Farmers aren't making the money they should be, because there are so many middle men adding value to the raw food (so many processed foods)
• The farmers almost have no choice but to keep cranking out their GM corn and cash crops, because that's what the key players in the food industry are buying. Result: the land gets absolutely wrecked from monocrops and over use and synthetic fertilizers and the like
• A lot pollution comes with growing and transporting food, if we grow in smaller scale and ship to a closer location, this pollution would be reduced (and it production costs would be lessened)
• Some questions remain: how can more people (consumers and produces alike) be convinced that professional development  in the way of environmental sustainability is such a great idea when so far, this goal does not link up with increasing profit? Things are tough enough these days as it is! 
• $$$!

http://outletbarnes.com

Falling for fall

     One thing we have a lot of here in Southern Ontario is apples. Boy oh boy do I love apples, and this is one thing I can buy local, simply by default. 
Both markets and grocery stores are packed with apples this time of year and you can buy them by the bushel. How many pies can you get from a bushel? I'm not sure, but I won't lie, I'd be happy to find out.


Aside from an apple a day, my upbringing was dominated mainly by pies, sauce and crisp of the apple variety. 
Apple crisp is probably the most dear to me, because it's always been there when I need it (i.e. all the time); my mom has had a crisp on the counter almost weekly for as long as I can remember.  With ice cream, it's dessert, with plain yogurt, it's breakfast! Once you realize how easy it is to make, you'll agree; this is one of the best foods ever to be made.


This is my mom's recipe, with some alterations because I was going gluten free when I made this particular one.  

Apples
Peel and slice
5 med. size apples -I used Cortland this time, they held their shape fairly well and yielded just enough juice. Their flavour is a citrus-kind of sweet.


Crisp
Stir together:
1 c. brown sugar
3/4 c. flour (I substituted rice flour, though I think I'd use slightly less next time)
(1/2 tsp xanthan gum, added to help out the rice flour)
3/4 c. rolled oats
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg (My addition, mum doesn't care for nutmeg)
Cut in:
1/2 c. butter


Pour apples into greased 9x13 dish and press crumble mixture on top
Bake at 350˚ for 45-50 minutes


Now go, go and enjoy the heck out of autumn. 


Love apples as much as I do but don't know which variety to use, where or when? Betty Crocker's got us covered!

Price Wars

http://www.theshoppingmom.com

As a follow up to the last post, I've collected the prices of a few produce items for comparison.  I recorded them from the same/ similar items at the Guelph Farmer's Market and Zehrs. I chose Zehrs because I consider it to be a moderately priced grocery store and therefore averages out the chain-store prices (i.e. it's not a 'bargain chain' like No Frills or Food Basics and not a specialty store like Whole Foods).

So, lets compare.


Market:
Red Onion: $0.99 each
Broccoli: $2.00 each
Large Eggs ("grain fed"): $4.50/dozen
Mini donuts*: $4.50/6

Zehrs:
Red Onion: $2.99/3lb bag
Broccoli: $0.99
Large Eggs ("Omega 3"): $4.09
Mini Donuts: $2.99/package of 40

Overall, the market is more expensive than your average grocery store. Not surprisingly, farmer's markets tend to attract people with higher incomes and levels of education.¹  I've cited a Michigan-based study for that statement, but it's one of many that I found to support it while I was writing a lit review to investigate "who accesses produce through local agriculture?" Should I reference myself there? I've never had that option arise, ha!

A lot of the people reading this are probably students, would you (or do you) pay more for items at the Farmer's market? If not, do you expect to, when your income skyrockets because of the excellent career you'll have as soon as you graduate? (No, I couldn't keep a straight face for that).



*Despite being include as a whimsy, it's worth noting that the mini donuts at the market were being cranked out fresh, from the cool-looking donut machine while the package at Zehrs were the white powdered kind that always feel kind of mushy in your mouth. You know what I mean. 

Sources:
[1] Locally Grown Foods and Farmers Markets: Consumer Attitudes and Behaviors http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/2/3/742/ - but you've got to access the .pdf on your own ;)

How Fair is Market Fare?

I had the pleasure of going to St. Jacob's Market last weekend. This place is part farmer's market, part flea market, part craft show. It's really something!

First of all it was still packed at 11am, which is unusual for most of the markets I've been to, except this one closes at 3pm so that probably relieves the urgency to get there asap for those who prefer a leisurely pace on Saturday mornings, like myself.

I had a great time experiencing St. Jacob's. I bought a bag-load of pears, ate a taco from a food truck (another love of mine) and relished in all the sights and smells of our food culture.  As I meandered around the outdoor produce vendors I noticed a few recurrent things: first off, lots of signs proudly boasted where the food had come from. One banner strung above a vendor's table said something along the lines of  their food being from within a '100 mile' source. Interesting. This may be a good marketing point, all moral and economic issues aside. People can fondly identify with a location they are familiar with. Another trend was in the pricing, most were in even dollar amounts (no change) and many were more expensive than you'd find in any grocery store. Here's an example:

That's $5.50 for a 'quart' of apples! What is there, six apples in that container? That's almost a dollar an apple!  I can get a 3lb bag of Ontario apples at the grocery store for $2.99.  Sure, these ones do look great and they're huge, but that's a steep price to pay for a humble apple. If the point is to support your local farmers, is this inflated cost a charitable donation? Can I get a tax rebate for that?

Of course there's also the issue of chain grocery stores underpaying farmers for their produce which enables them to sell it to us at a lesser cost. This not fair either, of course. I hear both sides of this conundrum, I do.
I didn't talk with any of the vendors about their pricing and I suppose I should have done so. It could be an issue of quality, as all of the items I saw looked absolutely gorgeous and fresh.

My beef with the steep prices common to these venues is a matter of exclusivity. Higher prices make it quite difficult for those on a reduced or restricted income to shop at the farmer's market. Are these vendors only catering to the middle and upper class? That's not very sustainable.

To summarize, a passerby posed a pretty great question as I was on my way out.  She said: "what's the difference if I buy my oranges here or at the grocery store?"

Oranges? No farmer around here is producing oranges, that's for sure. But there they were on the table. What's up with that?

Are you a locavore?

What is a locavore? You’re probably familiar with this term because it was after all, Oxford’s word of the year in 2007.  Today, I can Google ‘local food’ and get about 190 000 000 results. This little concept has become a big deal.

Is this you?
from: cookingblog.partiesthatcook.com

First off, “local food” has no standard definition.  The general consensus of local food can be credited to the same women who coined locavore, that is: the production and consumption of one’s food within a 100 mile radius¹.

Clearly this would be a very difficult diet, right from breakfast. No bananas, no grapefruit, no SUGAR, no coffee and no tea?? No thanks. However, we in Southern Ontario are still very lucky in that we have the opportunity to consume a diverse and nutritious diet from local sources. Think of all the meats, milk, cheeses, fruits and vegetables and it will calm you down after that lack-of-coffee shock. 

Aside: when I was little and my brother was a scout, he somehow got the information that chicory root (a plant that grows rampant as a weed in our area) can be processed into a drink that substitutes for coffee. Now I don’t drink coffee myself (and I was six) but our mom, did not agree with this substitution. At all.

Anyway, one of the arguments for eating locally seems to be the benefit to your local economy and agricultural system.  The number of farms overall has been in steady decline in Canada, while the number of million-dollar farms has managed to increase². This implies job losses for individual families and a shift to larger scale industry; just like many other economic sectors. 

I like to play devil’s advocate, so lets just say that food production becomes monopolized by ‘big’ agriculture. What’s wrong with that? Give me your own opinions and I’ll continue to chip away at the many, many issues surrounding the origin of our food.

Some lighter fare is coming up, I’m going to St. Jacob’s Market for the first time!!

http://www.stjacobs.com/farmers-market

Sources:

[1] Oxford University Press Blog: http://blog.oup.com/2007/11/locavore/

[2] Statistics Canada “The financial picture of farms in Canada”
 http://www.statcan.gc.ca/ca-ra2006/articles/finpicture-portrait-eng.htm

Break it down

Well hello!

I love food.

Oh no, not another one.

I can hear you saying it, but bear with me. I love lots of other things too, like: kitten videos, tea time, borderline offensive colour combinations and substituting swear words for old timey phrases. I’m going to make a career out of food though, I just assume cat hoarding and fashion mishaps will come in time, consarn it!

Anyway, I’m here to investigate local food systems. What are they? What do they have to offer? Why should we care about them and why are some people so riled up about supporting them?

Growing up in the Niagara Region of Ontario, I don’t think I went a day without some reminder of a nearby garden, orchard or vineyard. My neighbour has sold his peaches, plums and pears at the side of the road as far back as I can remember. My parents took me strawberry picking every June and we regularly stocked up on produce from ‘storefronts’ that were often no more than an extension on someone’s house (A trip to Houtby’s on Lakeshore Road was particularly exciting for 5 year old me, because I knew they’d let me in the back room to see Mr. Houtby’s prize chickens and if there were any new kittens from the barn cats). It was normal fare. I didn’t know it then, but I had the fortune of knowing where my food came from at a very young age.  Today, I’m an undergraduate student in applied human nutrition and I love food and all it does for humankind.

But

I’m not a foodie. I’m not pretentious or elite in my dietary choices. I’m not so interested in local food because it’s hip these days. Do you know how many people in Canada are hungry? It’s hard to discern, but to give an idea, almost 900 000 people were helped by a Canadian food bank in March of 2010 [1]. There’s so much more to food sourcing than staying cool. I’m looking at my diploma for a B.A. in sociology as I type. The secret’s out. I’m a social science kid too and I care about more than just what's on my plate.

I’m going to break this trend wide open. Let’s see where my love of learning takes me now.

Sources: 
[1] Food Banks Canada http://www.cafb-acba.ca/factsandstats.htm