Locally Grown and Produced Food [General]

2011 Jan 22
Some of you may have seen this already. It does a great job of explaining the impact of buying/not buying local Canadian produce.

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2011 Jan 22
This is really good, up to the point where you find out that it's produced/sponsored by Hellmann's. Not sure what to make of that...

2011 Jan 22
Good point about the Hellmann's produced video.
It is good that they just had their ad at the end and not through the whole video.

One thing they forgot to mention is that we do not grow fruit and vegetables year round in Canada, esp when we have winter here and other places do not.

I guess we could always freeze local fruits and veggies and use those when it is another season? if you have the freezer space for that...

I think they also left out how much meat is imported. I would love to know that.
I recently bought some chicken skewers from MM meatshops- some small tandoori ones...I did not look at the box too closely at the time.
But when I got home I saw they were a product of Thailand!
Do we really need that much meat from other places?

2011 Jan 23
I was surprised it was by Hellman's too. Doesn't make the stats any less scary. For every pear we produce in Ontario we import 700? I am learning more about local and/or organic food these days. Went to the Ottawa Organic Market yesterday and it is surprising what is available even this time of year, including meats and vegetables. I went to a seminar on Friday night about food sustainability, and one of the things the speaker suggested was that some of the best resources for good local and organic food are on foodie websites, and it was this site that led me to the organic market. So thanks to everyone who posts on the subject here.

Just trying to make better choices when I can, and this morning I had a full breakfast of local organic eggs (I was shocked at how much better they tasted and how much harder the shells were), toasted sweet potato cinnamon bread with local organic butter, local heritage pork back bacon, and organic (but not local) mango. All bought from the Ottawa organic market yesterday. So I won't be doing this every day, but today my halo is shining LOL.

2011 Jan 25
There is also a online "farmer's market" food co-op that has local food year round.
Well, it is local to me as it is 1 bus from my house to the market drop off point in Hull.

marcheoutaouais.com

And if you help out at the Marche Outaouais you also get 15% off your order (there is a 15% fee with your order to cover operating costs of the co-op building).
I was also told there is currently around 1800 members (but not that many go every week-it never seems super busy).

You can get quite a few local vegetables still- and even local strawberries ;)
(lol,the berries are frozen).