the aspirant locavore’s weblog

ABOUT ME:

I’m a 28 year old girl (woman? that sounds old), living in Cape Town, South Africa. I live in a nice flat in Tamboerskloof (with no garden, sadly). I work in sustainable agriculture, which is like the most awesome thing ever.

ABOUT LOCAL EATING:

This blog is about my attempts to eat more local and seasonal food. Why? Why did I pick this as my mission, as opposed to, for example, saving the whales? It’s because I believe that changing our diets in this way can simultaneously solve many of the world’s problems. A grand claim, to be sure, but perhaps if you stick with this blog over time I can convince you of this.

Eating local means setting some boundary in your head (e.g. 200 kilometres from your home) and trying to limit your diet to food produced in that area. The benefits are:

• You reduce your carbon footprint cos the food doesn’t have to be shipped or trucked as far.
• Ultimately your food costs will be lower as the price of oil rises.
• You know what you are putting in your mouth (in a country with no laws for the labelling of GM food, this is a good thing)
• You know that the farmer who grew or raised the food is getting fairly compensated for it (I will write more on my frustration with the agricultural value chain at some point. But believe me, farmers aren’t getting paid well enough while SA’s big retailers get richer).
• You are guaranteed that the food will be tastier and fresher and full of nutrients (I don’t know about you, but those tomatoes we get in winter have NO flavour)
• You’ll build a connection to your food (while this sounds a little flaky, I think it must count for something. Humans have almost always produced their own food and now that most of us have no idea what a chickpea plant even looks like, I think we may have lost a part of ourselves in that)

ABOUT MY STRATEGY:

I will employ a two-pronged strategy in this experiment. The first will be to interrogate my current sources of food to find out where they come from. I’ll be going to my local Pick ‘n Pay etc. to ask them where the fruit and veggies come from, what chemicals the farmer uses etc. I’ll phone in and write to the customer services of the products I regularly buy to ask them where the ingredients come from and where the product is processed and how far it travels to reach me. This could result in some nice heated discussions (and lots of time on hold too, I’m sure).The second prong will be to find more local food. This will mean visiting farmer’s markets, organic box schemes etc and asking lots of questions. I can’t wait to start. Hope you come along for the ride!