Eating Locally on a Tiny Island?
I had a rather rude awakening to eating locally when I moved to where I now live, a tiny tropical island in the middle of nowhere.
I arrived at the beginning of winter. (Not that winter is any hardship – it’s lovely and warm and sunny, it’s just that it gets dark earlier).
But, a lot of stuff isn’t grown here in winter.
That meant that a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables were basically unavailable.
I could buy pineapples because they’re grown here throughout the year. But most of the other fruit I so enjoy? Nothing. Nada. No onions at all for two weeks or so (panic!). Then the red onions arrived, but the brown onions disappeared until summer.
I can’t honestly say I enjoyed my first winter here – settling in was difficult anyway and it didn’t help having such a tiny variety of fresh options. But I was definitely eating local (even if it wasn’t voluntarily!).
At the time I just got upset – I didn’t take constructive action.
Now things are a little different. I have a great harvest of bananas from my garden. I peel, slice and freeze them, in portion sizes. They make a delicious addition to my protein shakes, and of course they’re organic so they taste great too! My pineapples are still growing – they take about 2 years after planting. I got a few tomatoes before I lost my harvest, and something ate my lettuces before I did. I’m planting brown onions to be ready for next winter and a few other veggies. I’m not the most green-fingered person, so my efforts are small, but I’m trying.
The other way that things are different is that recently, more food is being imported. So it’s now possible to get more fresh fruit during our winter.
Is that good? Yes and no. It’s so, so nice to have a little variety during winter now. But local it ain’t. The food miles are pretty horrific – this little island is a long way from anywhere.
Some Interesting Discoveries
My experiences meant I discovered a couple of interesting things.
- First, if I had to live without food shops, I’d be in a bad way. I grow some of my own, but certainly not enough to survive on. Self-sufficiency is hard for city types like me!
- I can’t tell you how much I appreciate food as it comes into season and becomes available. Knowing it’s not going to be around forever, also makes it more precious – and enjoyable. And I wouldn’t have found that out, if I’d continued to live where I have choices all year round.
My Commitment to Local Eating Year Round
I’m essentially doing 2 things:
- I made a commitment to eat less meat, specifically beef and lamb, which have the greatest environmental impact. To my mind, this has a bigger impact on eco friendly living than avoiding food miles (within reason of course). Sites like Meatless Mondays help to make this easy.
- After my ‘winter of discontent’ I’m now far more aware of what can be grown locally here, and what I can grow myself. I grow my own and buy local food as much as I can. But I also know I need to eat healthily, and so there will be some produce that I shall continue to buy, which has to be shipped or flown in.
Is it ideal? No.
Many people live in areas where not everything is grown locally or even close by. Living a totally eco friendly life is rarely possible in today’s world; we all have to make our choices, weigh up our options, and choose the paths which are the best for the environment within our own constraints.
We all do the best we can, with what we have.
And as long as we keep striving to improve and reduce our footprint on the Earth, I believe we’re doing a good job.
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The world has gotten away from local foods … so many items are now massed produced in a central location. So eating locally and maintaining good health through a variety of foods is tough. My approach is to eat as locally as possible. Sometimes that means my circle of “local” expands … to neighboring states, the country and sometimes other countries. Hopefully that will change as people learn the benefits of local offerings and ask for them. Until it does, I’m comfortable with looking to my own backyard first and then slowly moving outward. This challenge has encouraged me to learn about canning and preserving food … something which I’ve never done. I live in a small apartment but still … I think I can use some of the small batch recipes around and put up a few things. It’s my goal! 🙂
I think that’s a great goal! And you’re right, today’s world actively discourages local food. It’s good to know that Small Footprints is helping to change the world, one small piece at a time!
Realising that suddenly what you could buy last week can’t be found this week and that you probably won’t find it again until the next season must take you back a few years. Reminds me of growing up in the West of Scotland in the 60’s – strawberries for only a few weeks, new potatoes and many other fresh items. The home deep freeze was the first big step and then supermarkets and specialists sourcing from different areas of one country and then importing all year round. Big step going back 50 years, but at least you say it is changing even with food miles!
Yes, we were all much better at eating in season and eating locally even just 50 years ago – hard to believe how much has changed in such a short time. Thanks for your comment!
I’m with you Clare when it comes to what you eat being more important than the food miles in most cases. I also try to limit my beef and lamb consumption and follow Meatless Mondays but there are times when I take food miles seriously like any veg that has to be flown over – I made the mistake of buying Asparaus a week early this year and accidentally bought a packet that was flown in from Peru!
From Peru to the UK – yikes! Yet it’s all too easy to do, I agree. I saw papaya at an incredibly low price last week, all the way from Malaysia – talk about the full environmental cost not being charged! Thanks for raising our awareness of eating local food, and I really appreciated your recent well-researched and well-thought-out article on it.