The wonders of moderation

I've been reading Just Food by James E. McWilliams, and I'm going to have a lot to say about it when I'm through.  In the meantime, though, I'd like to talk about the concept of moderation.

People seem to view living sustainably as an all-or-nothing endeavor.  "I couldn't do that, I like my Twinkies/Doritos/McDonald's cheeseburgers too much," is a common refrain I hear when I talk to people about my project.  But no one ever said you have to give up Twinkies, or Doritos, or even McDonald's cheeseburgers, in order to eat more sustainably.

The key there is the word "more."  I'm talking about improvements, not complete overhauls.  Sure, the environment would be much better off if we all were exclusively vegan locavores who rode bikes to work at offices powered by solar energy and fairy farts, but realistically that's never going to happen.  But most of us can make changes - even small changes - in our diets and our lives to move us in the direction of sustainability.

I don't think anything I'm doing this year is out of reach for the average suburban middle-class family.  Sure, I'm lucky to live in an area with a vibrant food community - I can easily get everything from locally made cheese to local pasta to local hummus, right at the farmers' market - but Cleveland isn't the only place with farmers' markets and CSAs.  Despite what my parents keep saying, they DO have access to both in Delaware:

• farmers' market in downtown Wilmington: http://www.inlittleitaly.com/events.htm
• CSA in Newark: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/M38211
• Restaurants, orchards, and more: http://www.localharvest.org/search.jsp?map=1&lat=39.794276&lon=-75.534321&scale=10&zip=19803

Getting to the farmers' market requires a little bit of planning - I'm getting good at remembering to bring the cooler and ice packs with me - but isn't any harder than going to a second grocery store to pick up something that was out of stock at your regular store.  My routine tends to be:

• Tuesday - visit the local grocery store chain while my daughter is in an after-school program nearby
• Thursday - pick up CSA basket (about 10 minutes away from our house)
• Saturday - visit farmers' market and Trader Joe's, which is right next door

Occasionally I need to supplement this with a trip to the local grocery store (which is across the street from the library, which I visit at least once a week), and any trips to the farm stand can usually be combined with a trip to visit friends nearby, so neither one counts as a separate trip, just an extra stop on an existing errand run.

Recycling is easy for most of us, thanks to curbside pickup and the proliferation of paper pickup dumpsters at schools and businesses.  But recycling paper (dropoff at my daughter's school, which I have to visit every week anyway) and cardboard (curbside pickup) means that our family garbage output is now down to slightly more than one bag a week.

Composting works if you've got any sort of yard at all - or even a basement or cool closet, if you're willing to set up a worm composter.  Our compost setup is terribly complex - it's a pile in the backyard that I flip around once in a while with a pitchfork.  I decided not to harvest any of the finished compost this spring, keeping it instead to kickstart things for this summer's output.  But when I'm ready to use it, it will be taking the place of some of the mulch in our existing flower beds, as well as taking the place of some of the soil amendments I need to buy when I make a new bed.  Getting the kitchen scraps out to the compost pile is no work at all - I hand them to the kid and tell her she gets an extra 5 minutes of playing outside before bed if she takes the scraps out for me.  Win/win!

One of our main waste sources used to be cat litter.  But now that I'm using a flushable litter, that's dropped to zero, as has our need for plastic grocery bags to scoop stuff into.  Come on, most of us keep our cat boxes in a spare bathroom or utility room anyway - is it that hard to scoop it into a toilet instead of a bag?

Choosing sustainable products for housekeeping is getting easier and easier.  Even stores like Target and Wal-Mart carry brands that, while not perfect, are at least an improvement on conventional detergents and soaps.  And things like soaps, lotions, and other personal care items can even be bought online from small vendors (we like several sellers on www.etsy.com, as well as local folks who sell at the farmers' market and the gift shop at the botanical garden).

Growing your own food doesn't take 40 acres or a mule.  Don't tell me you don't have time, or space, or even a container.  It takes five minutes to grab an old plastic tote, drill some holes in it, and fill it with dirt.  Plant something in it.  Stick it on a patio, put it on your front porch, leave it sitting near whatever sun you can find in your apartment.  Even growing one tomato plant - or a small planter of herbs or salad greens - lets you control exactly what goes into your mouth in a way that trips to Safeway can't.

And one of the easiest ways to make a big impact on the environment doesn't involve farmers' markets or weird soap or finding a place to recycle #5 plastics, it just means making more informed choices when you plan your meals.  We've gotten so used to having every food available every day - thank you, Chile and New Zealand! - that the idea of waiting until something is actually in season near you before you eat it is completely foreign to most of us.  Asparagus with Christmas dinner?  Sure!  Strawberries in January?  No problem!

There's nothing wrong with enjoying an occasional out-of-season treat, but partaking in the bounty of the Southern Hemisphere all year when there are local alternatives that support neighbors' farms and don't damage the environment as much - well, that's just wasteful.  As I described it to the kids in my daughter's kindergarten class, when you go to the grocery store, you should think before you buy fruit - do you want a banana from South America, a kiwi fruit from California, or an apple that was grown in a suburb of Cleveland?  There's nothing wrong with eating bananas, or kiwi fruit - but we don't need them every day.  They taste that much better if they're a treat to be anticipated and savored, not a staple to be taken for granted.

Erg, this has gone on too long.  I'm not done - plenty of blog fodder in my brain, at least today! - but I'll put it on hold for now.

Now, got grab some asparagus before the season is over!

So long, farewell

The height of the pile of research books by my bed has descended to ankle-level, there are actual vegetables for sale at the farmers' market, my CSA deliveries have started, my vegetable garden is mostly planted, and I've found sources for local cheese and beer.  I have to face facts - the time has come to say goodbye to my family's resource-wasting diet and begin our (sort of) sustainable summer.

The transition isn't happening overnight.  I actually started easing into it a few weeks ago as I was researching sources for various local and organic products.  As we ran out of things - milk, eggs, cheese - I replaced them with the most sustainable versions I could locate at the time.  So we now have free-range organic eggs that were grown in the Cuyahoga Valley, milk from grass-fed Ohio cows, and hand-made breads from local bakeries. They're sitting right next to the individually-wrapped hot dogs, American cheese slices, and Quaker chewy granola bars that we already had in the house.  I keep picturing the new kids on the block talking trash to the old guard whenever the fridge door closes, but that's probably just my imagination.

When sustainable versions haven't been available, I've been trying to skip the purchases.  My kid doesn't really need granola bars or cheese-flavored crackers, not to mention whipped yogurt that costs an arm and a leg for something that's mostly air and artificial flavoring.  And while orange juice tastes good and isn't the worst thing we could be drinking, even the organic stuff is trucked in from points that are waaaaay outside our loose definition of "local," and we're able to get local organic apple cider that's cheaper in both monetary and environmental costs.

I've been weaning us off of fast-food, too, making a point to have lunch fixings in the house all the time and scheduling errands so that we don't have to eat on the run.  We've been sitting down to dinner every night - in a dining room, not a car - and for the most part all of us have been eating the same thing.  I wouldn't say the troops are ecstatic about that last part - asparagus has not gone over well with Liza, and we've had a lot to use up - but I must say the routine is getting easier.

Our final preparatory step is going on today and tomorrow.  We still have a stock of "forbidden" foods that need to disappear out of temptation's reach before we officially begin the experiment.  I've been trying to use them up and/or throw out the ones that we shouldn't be eating anyway, but there's still quite a bit left.  The nonperishables - dried pasta, cans of tomato sauce, a few tins of mandarin oranges - will get packed up in a box in the basement, where we'll be able to get them if we absolutely have to, but they won't be staring us in the face every time we open the cabinets.  Perishables are going to get farmed out to friends and neighbors, who might be gullible enough to take some of those Stouffer's frozen dinners off of our hands.  I sure hope so, because I could really use the space in my fridge for "real" food ...

And so tonight we had our final family meal of forbidden foods - not things that we love, but things that we needed to finish up and get out of here.  An early dinner of chicken nuggets, frozen curly fries, and still more asparagus was followed by a late-evening snack of microwave popcorn.  After dinner we went on a refrigerator purge, pitching jars of ancient teriyaki sauce, pickled peppers that expired last year, and some tahini that I honestly believe was from 2007, judging from the flora inside the can.  I kept some salad dressings that were made outside of our area (and contain - gasp! - HFCS) because Jason was starting to get grumpy at that point, and it wasn't worth the fight.  I'll have plenty of time to research awesome homemade dressing recipes without having to shove the idea down his throat the first day.

Full disclosure:  As I type this, I'm making a big dent in the jar of cheese goop and bag of chips we had left.

So that's it.  This next week, our family will be going in different directions, visiting family and going to a grown-up version of summer camp.  The next time we're all together, we'll be officially starting to eat local.  Wish us luck!

"Remember when I tried that bite of green pepper?"

I'll be honest with you - my family is not entirely on board with the whole idea of eating sustainably for the summer.  I'm fairly sure my husband is only tolerating the idea because it means more cooking at home and less eating out, which appeals to his stingy side.  And my daughter started a vocal rebellion when I pointed out to her that goldfish crackers aren't exactly made down the street from stuff she can pronounce.  I believe her howl of "I DON'T WANT DO TO THE PROJECT THIS SUMMER!!!!!!!" could probably be heard wherever it is that they actually do manufacture those yummy little aquatic snacks.

In an effort to drag Liza on board the bandwagon, I've been trying to share some of what I'm learning with her, toned down a bit to appeal to the sensibilities of a five-year-old.  She loves talking about methane and global warming ... she just doesn't know that's what it's called.  Composting is good, for example, because it helps make a nice home for worms and bugs while they help our garden, and keeps stuff out of the landfills (which produce the same gas as cow burps, which is helping heat up the planet and hurting the polar bears). Thank you, Planet Earth! 

I'm also trying to come up with some homemade versions of some of her favorite snack foods, things we can make when we just can't face another bag of carrot sticks as playground fuel.  Our first attempt was granola bars, which Liza was very enthusiastic about making.  She was particularly in favor once she read the recipe and saw the part about how it's best to mix the ingredients together with your hands.  If there's anything the kid loves more than worms and cow burps, it's messy hands ...

As you may be able to tell from the picture, these are not strictly locavore-approved.  But it was a convenient way to use up a whole bunch of the leftover Easter candy - did you know that if you chop up hollow chocolate bunnies, nobody will notice that you were running short on chocolate chips?  And I figured that for a first try, the more familiar stuff we could cram in there (Reese's Pieces, anyone?) and the more control I gave her over the recipe, the more likely she would be to eat them.  

And I was right.  I think if I could manage to package these individually (rather than in one ever-congealing lump in a Tupperware bowl) they'd be perfect grab-and-go snacks.  A little bit of sweet, a little bit of stealthy fiber, and she didn't even complain when I threw in some sunflower seeds for protein.  I think I'll go for dried fruit instead of chocolate in the next batch - maybe with a chocolate drizzle over the top to keep Liza happy ... I think we still have a hollow bunny haunch up in the cabinet somewhere.

In the meantime, Liza has been very excited about the fact that the strawberry plants she bought already have strawberries on them, and she's ready to start grazing right. this. minute.  She asked me this morning if we could go strawberry picking today at Fitch's, which gave me the perfect opportunity to talk with her about fruits and vegetables being "in season."

I've been listening to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver as I do my training walks, and one recent chapter was the perfect introduction to the rough order in which you can expect to harvest various types of foods.  So this morning we sat down and read "Stalking the Vegetannual," and we talked about what kinds of foods are leaves vs. fruits vs. roots.  In a fit of creative genius, I grabbed a sheet of poster board and the estimated harvest schedule for Fitch's, and we made a calendar of when we should look for various veggies for the rest of the summer.  Veggies and fruits were drawn with gusto if not skill, and we even ended up with a bunch of smiling summer squash holding hands with some very pale zucchini, not to mention the Largest Potato Ever.  

I knew I was on the right track when she looked at the finished poster, sighed, and told me, "It's going to be a long time before I get to try another green pepper, isn't it?  Oh, well - at least the peas start soon!"

Yep, that poster's going to be in the place of honor (otherwise known as "taped to the end of one kitchen cabinet") for the rest of the summer.  After all, we still need to research and add drawings for when the raspberries and blueberries will be ready for picking, not to mention when that guy up in Avon is likely to have those funky Concord grapes with the eminently spittable seeds ...