ThinkLady

One local food meal = one step toward reducing foreign oil dependence

A couple of weeks ago Transition OKC helped host a Local Food Meet and Greet. The Meet and Greet provided a host of folks passionate about growing a local food system the opportunity to network and get to know each other better. It was enthusiastically and well-attended, with more than 110 people coming on a sunny Saturday afternoon to IAO Gallery in Oklahoma City to nosh on locally produced food, wine and do a little “speed meeting.”

The event was organized by the “Going Locavore Group,” a loosely organized and growing grassroots coalition (or alliance) of several Oklahoma City organizations focused on catalyzing and transitioning our food system to a healthier, more sustainable and resilient one – and one strategy for doing so is to localize it. The team organizing the event was for the most part all-volunteer, and although we were scrambling up until the last minute to put all the details in place – we pulled it off – a total team effort if there ever was one. If you have any interest in networking with this group, or want more info, email us at localfoodokc@gmail.com. 

As one of the volunteers working on this event, part of my task was to put together a slide show about the reasons for transitioning to eating local food, and to provide a high-level overview of some of the initiatives in other states focused on growing regional and local food systems. As we researched, we discovered coalitions in New York City and Vermont have aggressive strategic plans for regional and localized food sheds and the body of work on this topic is growing exponentially -- encouraging.

Above you’ll find one of the slides from the presentation and I’ll be sharing more of these in the coming days. Eventually will put the whole presentation online here at ThinkLady and at other sites such as Sustainable OKC’s blog  Fresh Greens and Transition OKC so if it is useful in any way to other local food efforts, it’s available for anyone to use and adapt.

In the meantime, given the high price of gas these days, the fact the era of cheap, easy-to-produce oil is over, and the growing production decline in one of the U.S.’s major suppliers of oil – Mexico -- thought this slide might be a good one to start with. It illustrates one way we can begin to reduce our dependence on foreign oil imports. Ebullient and grateful hat tip to Barbara Kingsolver and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, for helping us imagine a different way of eating in the world.

Imagine abundant local food. Imagine the jobs it will create and the ways it will strengthen our local economy. Envision the health it will bring to our school kids, our communities, the resilience it will give our communities. Imagine how much we can reduce our country’s oil addiction if we eat not just one, but two local food meals a week, three, five, etc. Imagine. And then try it. I think you’ll like it.

If you’d like info on how to get started eating locally head over to Transition OKC’s website where we have a page full of local food resources.

Technorati Tags: Community,local food,localization,locavores,conservation,resilience,peak oil,transition,sustainability

Sobering up

Part 3 of Wake-up calls, insurance and having a plan

Here’s a sobering fact: Grocery stores in general seldom have more than a three-day supply of food.

Add to that this little gem: According to the “Kerr Center Centennial Report: Closer to Home: Healthier Food, Farms, and Families in Oklahoma,” Oklahoma imports a large number of basic food items from out-of-state; 90–100 percent for many things that are backbones of a nutritious pantry. Example: We import 100 percent of the lettuce we eat, 99 percent of onions, 98.2 percent of the tomatoes we consume. More detail on Oklahoma’s import/export situation here.

Southern California's Imperial Valley produces about 80 percent of the nation's winter vegetables, and according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the whole state produces nearly half of U.S.-grown fruits, nuts and vegetables.

Most of the food we eat is shipped an average of 1,500 miles or more due to globalization. The aggregate share of of food imported from outside the U.S. in 2005 was 15 percent based on volume. Needless to say, the globalized food system we now have makes us vulnerable to all kinds of crises elsewhere in the nation and world.

More sobering. Households in general seldom have more than a one-week supply of food. We tend to think the stores will always be open and fully stocked with just what we need, just in time. Katrina and now Japan show us that just isn’t so.

Another scenario: Oil spikes to $120, $150 or $200 a barrel. Since much of what’s at the grocery store is shipped from around the nation and world, prices tend to escalate quickly. During the 2008 oil price spike, the price of some food items increased by as much as 125 percent in less than year, and the dramatic increase in food prices in 2011 has been much in the news lately. This kind of food inflation can eat a significant hole in your overall household budget.

If you’ve got a resiliency plan and/or emergency planning in place (I think the two go hand-in-hand), you’re much less likely to be vulnerable to these kinds of events. Having a food strategy seems useful. Key points:

• Think of your home as a grocery store and stock it accordingly.
• To get an idea of how much food you need, keep track of what you eat for a week and multiply that by the number of weeks of supplies you want to have on hand.
• Buying in bulk usually means a lower price point.
• Stock what you and your family will eat and what will provide good nutrition. Layton notes there’s nothing wrong with buying dehydrated food stuff, but if you don’t eat that kind of food routinely, eventually you’ll throw it out and that money and food just goes to waste. 
• To make the cost of creating your home grocery store affordable, spread acquisitioning out over several weeks.
• Pay attention to expiration dates. Use older items first and rotate in newer items.
• If all of this feels overwhelming, work on a two-week supply first and then build from there (if you want).
• When you use an item, immediately put it on your grocery list to replenish and maintain your supply.
• Learn how to can, freeze and preserve food yourself.

A significant and overarching way to help yourself and your community is to support the growth of, and transition to, a more localized food system. We will probably always import coffee here in Oklahoma, but there are a wide range of food items that can be grown here that are currently imported from California and elsewhere. Having a vegetable garden, shopping at farmers markets, local food cooperatives, buying directly from farmers, ranchers and local producers, are also good strategies for increasing not only your household food security, but of that of our community.  

And a word or two about water. It’s what we need most for survival. You can survive without food for at least 72 hours. You can’t live long without water.

Two ways to start an emergency water supply:

• Take empty juice or soda bottles (use only food-grade plastic or glass), rinse thoroughly, fill with water, and store away from sunlight. General rule of thumb – plan for one gallon of water per person per day.
• For a longer term water supply consider a rain tank and capture water from your roof. You’ll need to purify it but there are some simple ways to do so (see basic steps of food and water storage below). A rain tank also provides water for your garden and lawn and you’ll save money on the water bill, all at the same time.
• Don’t forget to include your pets and livestock in your planning.

You’ll find a brief synopsis of the basic steps for food and water storage here (taken for the most part from Layton’s book with a bit of personal commentary and info from yours truly). Disclaimer: Please note this is a very rudimentary introduction food and water storage and is not, by any means, comprehensive. It’s primarily a few notes I took in reading Layton’s book and doing a little research and decided to share in hopes it might be useful.

Coming in part 4, learning more and growing community.

Technorati Tags: agriculture,awareness,change,community,fear,food security,food and drink,hope,local food,localization,transition,water,emergency planning

How a small winter garden is saving us about $236

Officially spring is a mere three days away yet the weather folks are saying winter may yet have another another blast at us on Saturday. While we're all so weary of cold and gray, maybe this winter is Mother Nature's way of reminding us that even on our best days human beings really are not in charge.

Having no control over the weather, rather than grumbling about it, which I often do, I'm trying to focus instead on the blessings of winter -- and one of those is winter greens. A couple of years ago I learned of a book, "Four Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long," by Eliot Coleman and Barbara Damrosch that dramatically altered my perspective on gardening and winter.

Coleman and Damrosch are small farmers in Harborside, Maine, where they own and operate Four Season Farm, which produces vegetables year round. It's become a nationally recognized model of small-scale, sustainable agriculture. They produce crops, even in winter, in customized unheated, or in some cases minimally heated, movable, plastic greenhouses. Coleman's techniques are easily implemented and scalable to the smallest backyard or even patio gardener.

To grow winter crops, the concept is embodied in a few key points:

• Select cold weather crops. Coleman provides a long list. We started with a couple of small plots a couple of years ago and focus on winter greens such as lettuce, kale, chard, arugula.
• Plant them in the late summer or early fall when the ground is still warm and insulate the soil via cold frames and deep mulch. We find deep straw and leaf mulch work very well.
• Cold frames can be easily constructed with minimal cost a variety of ways -- using straw bales, or with planters or raised beds you may already have in place -- just remember the goal is to provide insulation for the soil to keep it from freezing.
• Then cover the cold frames with heavy plastic or old storm doors or windows. We've used both methods -- they work!
  

Coleman writes about shoveling aside three feet of snow in Maine to harvest salad greens from a cold frame. Although we didn't have three feet of snow here in Oklahoma, we did have a lot more snow and ice this winter, and yet our greens grew all winter long. Growth does slow to snail's pace in the winter so it's best to have robust growth going by winter's onset or you won't have much to harvest during deep winter. Once the weather begins to warm a bit though -- in Oklahoma that's around mid- February, early March -- the growth takes off again. We're cutting our greens now every few days and eating salads that wow the taste buds.

This year we spent about $4 on seeds for our winter greens cold frame and we used cut-and-come again varieties, meaning we can harvest from the plant again and again, and they are all totally organic. Everything else -- wooden stakes to elevate the plastic, leaf mulch, straw and straw bales and so on -- we already had on hand. Due to space and time constraints, we do supplement our harvests with greens from the farmers market, Oklahoma Food Cooperative and in deep winter, the grocery store, but in the future we hope to increase the amount of winter produce we grow ourselves, which in turn increases our household food security and resiliency. We may eventually be able totally eliminate grocery store greens since under our current food system, most travel from very long distances and are hence not only nutritionally inferior but dependent on fossil fuels for shipping.

A five-ounce container of organic salad greens at the grocery store can cost anywhere from $4 to $6 depending on the store and season -- enough for maybe two salads in our family. I've lost track of the number of salads we've harvested and eaten from our winter garden, but before it bolts (probably sometime in May or June) I'm estimating we'll have consumed at least 40+ salads at a cost of only about $4. If we'd purchased the greens from the grocery store, we'd have spent about $240. So our little winter garden plot is saving us about $236, and the taste of fresh cut salad greens in the middle of winter -- ladies and gents -- that's just priceless. A table to illustrate all this is below. Any other insights to share on winter gardening?

	Garden	Store bought
Initial investment	about $4 for seeds	about $6 per five ounces (organic)
Est # of salads for family of four	40+	2
Total cost of 40 salads	$4	$240
Estimated savings	$236
Household food security	Increases	Nope!
Taste	Priceless	Bleh!

Note: After I posted this entry, I was contacted by Nathan Lau in Malaysia. He and his wife Annie are self-described foodies and write the popular blog, "House of Annie." From their blog, "Annie is mistress of the kitchen while Nate is the master of the grill and smoker. We cook the homestyle Asian and Hawaiian foods of our younger days while also exploring the wider worlds of Western foods." They also place a strong emphasis on home-grown foods and offer a "Grow Your Own" roundup each month. They invited me to submit my post for possible inclusion in their April roundup, which I did. You can read more about this great opportunity here and enter a post in the roundup as well if you're blogging about raising, eating and using home-grown foods in recipes, etc.