Food For Thought

I did a bit of a grocery shop this morning - been a while since I did one this big and I paid extra attention to my food miles.

My latest considerations : I could only buy one brand of canned tomatoes that came from Australia - and that had a 50% price premium over the Italian brands - and it wasn't from my state let alone my neighborhood. I use a lot of canned tomatoes so now I have a choice of not using them, or reducing their use considerably, or concede that my food miles will be higher for doing so. And then I started to think about how far the can had traveled!

I realized that while I intended to drop my food miles to almost nil, practically that is almost impossible - at this stage anyway.

I was actually buying the tomatoes for a black eyed bean soup, and to restock the pantry. I then realized that I don't know of anywhere in Australia where they grow black eyed beans, and they weren't in the supermarket so that put paid to that option.

I got some red wine vinegar - a choice of three brands, all from Italy. Sigh, I gave into that one.

I went to buy some general (non-olive oil). I usually avoid canola oil simply because of the GM debate so I looked at everything else. None of the options available (yes I was in a major supermarket) had a pure Australia oil - all were made from 'Australian and imported' product. I even reverted to looking at the canola items but that was no different. Well I would only use a couple of litres a year so I will stick with my Australian olive oil instead.

The last decision I made, of any importance, was to not buy my Paul Newman's Ranch Dressing. I love the stuff but the ingredient list is way too long (and with way too many non-natural products) so I got some buttermilk instead and will make my own tomorrow. Now this is nothing against Paul Newman - all dressings are in the same boat - including the vinaigrette styles (which again I will now be making instead of buying) and in cutting out the 'numbers' this was an easy choice.

I went to buy packaged pasta but I then considered I really only use packaged product for fuel food, and not for actually savoring, or 'real' food. I left the pasta behind and shall make an effort to continue to make my own pasta - and avoid eating anything just for 'fuel'. To be honest I am not sure how sustainable that will be in the long run but I will make a strong effort.

I discussed this with Brother G and, at his suggestion, I think I have decided to keep a look out for a little mill so I can make my own flour. This will provide me with additional nutrition but I will also know exactly where my flour comes from - when buying a bag of grain you can invariably trace it to a specific farm - I just don't know where the supermarket product comes from so I can't even guess at the miles involved - lets face it 'Product of Australia' doesn't really help me narrow much down :-)

I have also decided to bottle my own tomatoes so will continue to purchase the Australian canned product until the local season kicks in later in the year at which time I can make a year's supply.

I am also going to make a supreme effort to get all of my fruit and vege at the local growers market. That is going to necessitate a complete overhaul of how I eat - probably making more vege-style soups with product that doesn't last the distance between markets but I can live with that - imagine real soup made with real sour dough (using my own starter and my own flour)....

When I decided to be more aware of my food miles, are reduce them where possible, I didn't actually realize what a big and complex job it actually would be. But I have made a start and shall continue to do what I can where I can. Shall continue to update as I can :-)

In the meantime I have a lot of research to do :-)