I think out of all the *big* environmental things I'm currently working on to make a difference is trying to eliminate imported food. Since we're a small country, it isn't really possible to say "I will only eat food produced within 200km of my home" otherwise we'd be eating no food except local produce (because all the food manufacturers are mostly located up north and more like 600km away)! So for me, eating local means eating food produced in New Zealand - and even that's tricky. Particularly for our family eating gluten free - it makes it SO tricky finding alternative grains to eat that would be local. Rice is not grown in NZ, nor things like chickpeas (as far as I know) etc. Rice makes up a large part of alternative grains for the gluten free diet - even though Australia grow rice, from what I understand it's not a particularly environmentally friendly way to produce it because of the high use of water which Australia just does not have.
So for now, I am working on sticking with NZ and Australian products and see how I go. I still have work to do on that.
It's not just about cutting back on food miles that is driving my desire to do this - but the fact that food prices are rising (and becoming quite noticeable), the thought of how we would access foods that our family are used to if we are no longer able to afford some of those Australian products and having the security and knowledge on how to work with local products (so the idea is to phase them out now so it is less of a problem later).
Basically, I want to make eating local "the normal thing to do" for our family without a second thought. The more we eat locally, the less I miss the imported products. We no longer eat canned fish and we no longer eat banana's. Two biggies for us to have given away, but I don't (and the kids don't) even think about it any longer (Simon buys himself banana's still for his lunches, but hey, I can't control what he does).
I have been much more mindful when preparing a meal and thinking about just what has gone into it, the top picture was lunch last Monday - homemade guacomole (using NZ made chili sauce which made no mention of sourcing products from overseas), homemade hummus (unfortunately using imported chickpeas, but I intend on growing some sort of white beans next year to substitute in here), home grown potatoes sprinkled with NZ made (very expensive!) cheese.
2 comments:
It's a tricky one isn't it Nikki? It's something that I am constantly working on and not doing as well as I would like I think. Even though there are many things that are grown here in Australia, the distances travelled in many instances might be the same (or further!) as it is from Australia to NZ, particularly food grown in the tropics or from WA. My first step was to work on getting rid of imported food - which was relatively simple - the next step in finding truly "local" food is proving quite tricky... We do what we can though don't we :-) Cheers, Julie
My god, you are an inspiration. I'm so glad to have found your blog. I haven't had time to read it all but will come back again for more.
: )
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