Food odyssey: Week 1

Embarking on the “only local, sustainable eating” journey this week, with the following discoveries:

This ain’t gonna be cheap. My first impression, after comparing, say, beef raised in a grassy pasture vs. feedlot beef, is that this ain’t a sport for poor people. I’m hopeful, though, that when you eliminate all the waste, packaged food, meals out and stuff like that the cost will come close to parity. (Of course, there’s also the old-fashioned alternative: Save beef and chicken for special occasions and use every scrap in stews and stocks.)

Sustainable and tasty aren’t always the same thing. Tried a stuffed bell pepper from locally grown foods. Yuck. Ditto for the almond chocolate bar, which I couldn’t distinguish from Hershey’s. As for organic lentil bread, you can HAVE it–not even the birds want it.

That said, there’s a discernible plus in the taste of the produce and dairy. Wonderful artisanal cheeses around here, and the sour cream doesn’t even taste like sour cream. But either I’m not eating the right poultry or my “free-range” expectations have come to naught. I’ve eaten free-roaming chickens in France. These ain’t it.

The best farms are full-up. Assuming they’re charging enough to make a profit, there’s no need to have a Farmer’s Aid Relief Concert around here. Buying a subscription to one of the farms near Glassland is proving a challenge–I can’t get them to return my calls, and I may wind up reserving a spot for 2009, not 2008.

I will be shopping more often. The upside to preservative-laden, feedlot-produced, “fortified” food is that you can leave it on the counter for a month and it’s still as fresh as the day you bought it. Not gonna happen with this organic sustainable stuff. EVERYthing seems to spoil more quickly. This stuff may taste better because if it’s three days old, it’s too fuzzy to taste.

My freezer has decided to help. The fridge freezer did a meltdown on Monday, sending assorted frozen chickens, stews, chops and such to the trash. Gave it a good scrubbing, and am now free to fill it up with good stuff, I suppose.

The freezer (and possibly the food dryer) looks to play an important role in this–the only way I can figure to have a life and food at the same time is to cook in batches and save stuff for future meals.

I am but a babe in the sustainable food world. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’m living in Oregon or just what, but I feel as if I’m about 90 years behind the curve. Mentioning this experiment to colleagues, friends and neighbors has so far produced the sort of expressions I’d get if I announced I’d discovered how much brighter the room is when I turn on the lights.

So, baby steps for now.

Share on Facebook