Pickles from India and other food musings

Food has been a huge emerging theme in my life lately. Usually it's a given that it's always there, that we have plenty of it and basically take it for granted. This new awareness around an unconscious relationship to food has been trickling into my awareness over the last few months. With it brings an awareness of a large disconnect we have in North America with our food.

So I can hear you saying, "What disconnect, we have so much food and can get anything at anytime!?".

I would have agreed even several months ago but now I'd like to challenge that statement. I do believe we are disconnected to our food and my awareness of this began after I planted my first vegetable garden and spent many hours in the dirt working with the seeds and plants. Once having proudly planted my little cucumber, tomato and pea babies (to name a few) I found myself wondering where my grocery store food had come from. Who had planted, nurtured and harvested my organic strawberries? Who's fingers first pressed the seeds of my romaine lettuce into the dirt? What was in the dirt? Was it taken care of or filled with pesticides and chemical fertilizers? The questions go on and on......So many of these questions were never in my mind before the birth of my little garden. Now they are a central theme every time I go shopping at my local grocery store.

The second "awakening" to my food disconnect occurred one evening when I was watching my partner eat out of a jar of pickles. Nothing special, just your everyday, run-of-the mill gherkin pickles......produced in INDIA! Those red words printed on that bright yellow label shook me to the core. WHY were we eating pickles from India? Was it not possible to source local, Canadian cucumbers to produce these pickles? Who grew the pickles in India? How were they grown? Then the whole enormity of the amount of petroleum that was burnt in order to transport those pickles from India to Montreal and then to our local grocery store is honestly, in one word: disgusting! Have we really strayed so far from common sense that we are willing to ship tiny little cucumbers, grown in India over two continents to be processed and then sold across a huge country like Canada? Have we begun to lose our "homegrown" roots where people took pride in the preparation of preserving foods such as pickles. Why don't we see locally grown, produced and canned pickles on our shelves? I vote for Grandma's home canned pickles. Would anyone like to start a Grannies for Canning movement! I'd be your best customer......

Finally, my last observation around our disconnect with food is the fact that we have a proliferation of food preparation TV shows and magazines, so much so that there is an entire network (food network) devoted to it. How else are we going to connect with our food other than by watching how to prepare every kind of fabulous tasting dish by watching it on TV and then going to the grocery store to buy grapes from Chile, pickles from India, peppers from Mexico, bananas from Ecuador and corn from the United States? We are SO spoiled and totally disconnected from our food.

So why take the time to write this entry? Really, it frustrates me at no end to see apples rotting on our trees because our local market is flooded with foreign product. It upsets me to see Indian pickles on my table in a time where global warming has never been a more relevant issue. I'm saddened to see the general unconsciousness we have about the sources of our food and a lack of awareness of it's "actual" cost (actual cost = the price + the cost to our environment burning fossil fuels and the cost of health care due to dis-ease related to pollution for example). If you connect with any of these reasons or have your own beefs, please read on.....

So not one to complain without offering solutions, here are a few suggestions I'd like to make:

1. Ask your grocer questions such as; can they source similar products locally? Will they bring in more organic foods, locally produced if possible. If they can, express an interest in buying locally produced food over imported food.
   
2. Consider the actual cost of the food you purchase instead of just the price. Pickles from India might be $1.50 cheaper in price but cost all of us MUCH more in the long run.
   
3. Attend local farmers markets and do anything you can to support their growth and development.
   
4. Buy organic fruits and veggies in season. Supply and demand: move this type of food off the shelf and the grocers will be encouraged to bring in more.
   
5. Buy local! This food is skinny on carbon dioxide. Save the planet.
   
6. Plant a tree, plant a flower, heck plant a garden! Who needs a lawn anyway?
7. Ask your Grandma to show you how to can. Preserve your own food when it's in season.
8. Buy a food dehydrator. Trusting how your food is processed is so beautiful.
9. Get involved and ask questions. Grassroots movements are abundant and important.