Eating locally - at a big box grocery storeby Michelle
July 22 2007
| | | | One morning, I decided to eat locally -- after all, how hard could it be? I went to the most obvious place to start my quest, the grocery store. Wandering around the aisles, notebook in hand, and getting strange stares from one lady, I began looking at every item and where it came from. Despite the promises of the "good things grow in Ontario" commercials, there wasn't a lot of fresh local produce to choose from.Eating locally has gained traction recently in the wake of the general move towards environmentalism, and the success of the organic food movement. The idea, of course, is to eat local foods, thereby reducing the travel time of your food and the carbon costs of transporting it. Eating locally began in grassroots movements around North America, and has hit the mainstream this year: We've all seen Foodland Ontario's “good things grow in Ontario” ubiquitous commercials; Time Magazine featured articles about it last March; and the Canadian book The 100 Mile Diet: A year of Local Eating, about a couple eating locally from B.C., came out in April. It has yet to show it's face in People magazine, perhaps because few celebrities have jumped on the bandwagon, although Woody Harrelson has been doing it for years. As I walk into the store there is a huge display of nectarines on sale and strawberries right beside, but both labels said they came from the U.S. Kiwis from Italy, prunes from Iran, bananas from Costa Rica (Okay, so we can’t grow bananas here but still), Australia, Malaysia, South Africa, South America -- it seems my food is coming from everywhere but Ontario. But wait! I finally find the Ontario produce. Tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, rutabagas, apples and lettuce, lettuce and more lettuce. Well, I can have a salad, but that’s it? What a shame - I know that Ontario grows fresh fruit in the summertime. It's just not here. I move over to the cheese section -- I know we have cows in Ontario. A find! Almost all cheeses have Ontario addresses on the packages, but does that mean they are made here, or just packaged here? So I called Tre Stelle. It turns out that they have different divisions all over Canada and for each division they use mostly local materials; here in Ontario the products are made in Concord. I also called Kraft Canada, and, after being basically blocked by two people who both claimed that where their products are made is information that is “not available to the public,” and they “if a product is made outside of the US then it will say so on the package.” This far-from-reassuring answer pretty much solidified the fact that I'll never buy Kraft again.Next I moved on to the meat, once again keeping in mind the cows on the side of the road when driving up north. Maple Leaf Consumer Foods (also owners of, Schneiders, Dempsters and Olivieri), has separate divisions for processed meats and hotdogs as well as fresh uncooked meats like their Prime chicken, all over the country, much the same as Tre Stelle, but they were not clear about using local cattle and poultry. The meat packaged at the store was a different story. The butcher didn’t know much about where his beef comes from, he said “I know some comes from Ontario, but most comes from Alberta, and I don’t know which is which.” For things like yogurt, eggs and milk, my quest was easier. I called companies like Neilson’s and found out that they use the Dairy Farmers of Ontario for all their products; and for a natural option, Organic Meadow dairy company is localized with 45 different farms all over Ontario and Quebec.While I was able to find local milk, meat and cheese, it certainly wasn't easy (why isn't there a local section of grocery stores, like many stores' organic sections?). If large grocers can’t do more than make fabric bags and claim they’re helping the environment, than I don’t want to support them. I gave up on trying to be local inside my neighbourhood big bos, and instead stopped at all the little farms on the way up to my cottage on the weekend, and picked my own strawberries, bought fresh vegetables, eggs and meat. It really wasn’t more of a hassle to stop on my way to my weekend retreat and I enjoyed talking to the farmers. When I get back to Toronto, I'll do the city version of this, and go places that specialize in local food. There's the fresh fruit stands in Chinatown and other ethnic communities, the farmer’s market on Wednesdays at Nathan Phillip’s Square, and, of course, St. Lawrence market. The food is fresher, and often cheaper, and you know exactly where your food came from. Just don’t get too attached to the cows. | | |
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