Cleaning out the cupboards

In the past couple of days weird things have happened - all related, but unrelated. On Wednesday, I received a message on my blog from a reporter at the Globe and Mail. She's writing profiles of people who she refers to as "industrial food drop-outs." Interesting. She called me and asked a number of questions about my food choices, why I choose to eat locally and where I get my groceries. Apparently, she had found my blog and liked it. That was nice to hear.

That same day I received a telephone call from someone at OMAFRA (Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs). She had also read my blog and was following me on Twitter. A group of videographers are putting together a piece on the local food movement for their website. They wanted to ask me about my food choices, what eating locally means to me and where I get my groceries. Interesting. They're set to come to my house sometime next week to check out my cupboards, my fridge and my freezer in the basement.

If that wasn't enough, the next morning I get a message from Sarah Elton, author of Locavore, asking me about my urban (rural) root cellar. She's writing a piece for the Globe and Mail and I had responded to one of her questions on Twitter.

All this local food interest got me thinking - are my cupboards, fridge, freezer and root cellar presentable? Am I who I say I am? Or, am I living a lie? It's true that for a while I was so hardcore local that I felt overwhelmingly guilty when I even bought a lemon. Since then, though, I've let some things slide. I don't think that they expect everything in my cupboard to be local, but maybe they do. So, I decided to do a little kitchen overhaul - clean out my cupboards, so to speak. And here's what I found:

There is a LOT of stuff in my cupboards. A lot of food I'd been given by a friend's mom who moved away. Things like rice, rice, pasta and rice. None of it local. None of it organic. My baking cupboard is bursting with packages of sugar, graham cracker crumbs, bread crumbs, herbs, spices, flour, bran, etc. Some are local. Some are organic. Some was even grown by me. But most of it was not. There is much work to be done in the dried goods department. The cereals are all organic, the flour is local, as are the peanut butter and honey jars. I even have organic, local rainbow popcorn in there. But what about the oils, vinegars, boullion cubes, and spices? Could I do without those?

Then I opened my fridge. The condiments looked guilty. How did these things make their way into my fridge and did I actually ever use any of them? Not really. The fruits and vegetables in my fridge, however, were all purchased at the Guelph Farmers' Market,  making them 100% local and almost 100% organic. Not too bad.

My freezer is another story altogether. I am quite proud of my freezer. There is not a single company logo in my freezer and it's full! Yay! I don't have to clean the freezer out. It is filled with bags of local blueberries, strawberries, apples, peaches, and nectarines. There are packages of vegetables preserved from my garden. The meat is either wild game (duck, goose, deer, and fish) from Manitoba, meat I've purchased from the Hutterites, or meat from Magda Farm. Three cheers for the freezer!!! 100% local. There are about 40 old yogurt containers filled with homemade soups of every kind. Those soups were made with ingredients that I either grew myself or purchased from the Farmers' Market. Now that is something to be proud of.

Finally, my pride and joy - the canned goods cupboards. Every summer I can just about anything you can keep in jars. One look in my cupboards had me grinning from ear to ear. Brightly coloured jars of pickles, asparagus, tomato sauce, apricots, peaches, pears, beets, hot peppers and roasted red peppers line the shelves.

Yes, there are some things in my cupboards that I'm not so proud of, but a thorough investigation of them all proved that there was much that I could be proud of. Bring on the cameras OMAFRA, my cupboards are clean!

Tomato, Tomahto: The politics behind your purchases

If you're anything like me, your weekly shopping trip gets more and more complicated all the time. There are just so many things to consider; local, fresh, organic, free-range and fair trade, as well as the obvious consideration of cost. Sometimes I find myself spending a good 10 minutes staring at labels, trying to figure out which item will provide me with the most nutrients without breaking the bank. Ideally, this singular purchase will land in my grocery basket with an emphatic thump, without compromising my morals or beliefs. In reality, if I can't trace the item back to its source, I don't really know where my money is going. Sometimes that emphatic thump gets muffled by packaging and labels using words such as, 'wholesome', 'nutritious', 'farm fresh' and 'traditional'.  We're told time and time again that we, the consumers, hold purchasing power and that, ultimately, we control the market. But since tracing food stuffs from your local grocery store back to the source is virtually impossible, how can you make an educated and informed decision? Can we really have purchasing power without knowledge?
The answer, quite simply, is no. For most people, standing in a grocery aisle for 10 minutes while scrutinizing a can of salmon is not an option, nor does it bear satisfactory answers. Moreover, we simply do not want to spend our downtime doing investigative research. Often, and understandably so, choices are made based on those persuasive words and  powerful images. So, if you are much like me and you don't have 10 minutes to decide which can of salmon best fits your foodie dogma, eating locally might just be the answer. Not only does it save time, but you can ask the food producer all those niggling little questions that the can of salmon couldn't or wouldn't answer.
That said, I still find myself dissecting  and analyzing labels at the local grocery store from time to time. But what about produce? What do the tiny little stickers on our fruit and veggies tell consumers? If you look closely, you'll see where they were grown and whether or not they were grown organically. Is this really enough information to make a good decision? Do we need to know more? Well, this morning I read an article that, once again, changed the way I will look at produce forever.
A Case for Florida Farmworkers:

In order to keep up with global demand, American fruit and vegetable production has dramatically increased. Although demand and production have risen, the farmworkers who pick and pack this produce have seen their wages and working conditions either remain stagnant, or decline.

In 2001, the US Department of Labor sent a letter to US Congress describing working conditions for Florida farmworkers. The report described farmworkers as "a labor force in significant distress". Its conclusion sited farmerworkers' "low wages, sub-poverty annual earnings, (and) significant periods of un- and underemployment" as evidence of this distress. According to the 2008 USDA Profile of Hired Farmworkers, their work setting is similar to that of industrial workers. Farmworkers operate heavy machinery, which is hard physical labour. They also confront significant health risks such as sun exposure, pesticide exposure, inadequate sanitary facilities and crowded and/or substandard housing. Farmworkers earn poverty level wages, have no right to overtime pay and are not allowed to organize or collectively bargain with their employers. Due to the fact that farmwork is seasonal and unpredictable, rates of unemployment are double those of wage and salary workers. Furthermore, it has been more than 30 years since their rate of pay has risen significantly. Florida tomato pickers, for example, earn 45 cents for every 32 lb bucket of tomatoes picked. In a 10-12 hour day, workers have to pick 2 1/2 tons of tomatoes just to make the equivalent of Florida's minimum wage! In some extreme cases, workers are made to work against their will for little to no pay. This is basically modern-day slavery and absolutely despicable! Since 1997, Federal Civil Rights officials have prosecuted 7 slavery operations, involving over 1000 farmworkers!!

If you're not moved by environmental factors and you don't believe in the health risks involved in shipping food from afar, surely we can all agree on one thing: every worker, no matter what industry they work in, deserves to be fairly paid and justly treated. They deserve to make decent wages, work in a clean and safe environment, and be protected by labour laws so that they may not be exploited by their employers.

If you would like to learn more about farmworkers in Florida and what is being done to raise awareness, the entire article can be read here: http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/slow_food/blog_post/join_ciws_farmworker_freedom_march/

I didn't really need another reason to hem and haw in the produce section, but I'm certainly going to be extra careful when purchasing my fruits and veggies in the future. As I see it, buying local is the only way to truly know your food.
What do you think? As a consumer, how can we be sure that what we are buying isn't in direct conflict with our morals and values? Post your comments here.