dieting feet

[the_siobhan]

Buying food from local sources is getting a lot of press lately, to the point that Axe & I heard a CBC feature on it while we were in the car. Which led to a conversation about the comparative benefits of eating an omnivorous but local diet vs eating vegetarian/vegan if your goal is to reduce your carbon footprint.

We're trying to reduce the amount of meat in our diet. But is it really helping if we cut down on the meat we buy - all raised in Southern Ontario - and replace it with vegetables shipped from all over the world?

(Of course the ideal is to go vegan and eat only locally grown organic foods, but just for the sake of argument.)

Comments

[heresiarch.livejournal.com]

my ideal diet is plant-based with modest amounts of meat and dairy. i think raising animals can be sustainable as long as it's done on a small scale. the CSA we belonged to in Massachusetts was biodynamic, and they emphasized the importance of having a farm in which animals and plants were raised together, mimicking natural cycles to maintain the soil's fertility. the cows, for example, will graze a fallow field down to the stalks, while pigs will turn the soil, and both will fertilize it with manure, as long as you move them around (michael pollan describes a similar routine of pasturing animals in his book, The Omnivore's Dilemma).

from my perspective, large scale agribusiness is the problem, whether it's factory farmed meat and dairy, conventional produce in the Central Valley (California), or endless soy and corn fields in Iowa.

still, i wonder how it's possible to feed all of North America on locally grown food only. how long is the growing season in Ontario? i'm all for reducing overpopulation as well, but i think we'll have to find a way to adapt sustainable production to meet the needs of large, mostly metropolitan populations.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Our growing season is comparable to what you would have experienced when you live in Mass. Southern Ontario has tons of farmland, so it would be pretty easy to live a primarily vegetarian diet in the summer/fall. Winter and spring is when it would be tough.

I agree with your assessment of agribusiness.