Vote with your fork

Travel light with Slow Food’s Menu For Change campaign, which encourages you to buy, cook and eat local

October 26, 2017 03:17 pm | Updated 03:17 pm IST

Are you eating quinoa for breakfast? Ordering Norwegian salmon at restaurants? Stacking your larder with pears from China, apples from America and grapes from Australia?

You could be contributing to climate change.

Admittedly, on the surface, dinner and the climate may seem tenuously linked. Even if you do subscribe to the chaos theory: Edward Lorenz’s oft-paraphrased statement about how when a butterfly flutters its wings in one part of the world, it could eventually cause a hurricane in another.

This is why Slow Food, a global, grassroots eco-gastronomic organisation, is currently running the Menu For Change campaign. For three weeks from October 16 till November 5, the organisation is encouraging people to eat local, seasonal produce. Then, from November 6 to November 25, they will run the ‘Cook up a better future’ project, promoting recipes whose ingredients include sustainability, biodiversity and respect for the environment.

Over the phone from Bra, Italy, where Slow Food is headquartered, Michele Rumiz, programme coordinator for Asia Pacific and Eastern Europe, discusses the movement. Rumiz works on building networks amongst small-scale farmers, chefs and academicians, to raise awareness on food and agriculture sustainability issues. He says, “People need to understand the connection between food choices and climate change. When you think about threats to the environment, you picture cars, factories and smoke. Never food. However, food is a dramatic contributor.”

He explains how while our existing food system contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time agriculture is also among its first victims. Hence, it is important to choose produce that is local and sustainable over produce that travels over long distances packed in reams of plastic. This way, we consume less energy, produce less emissions and reduce waste. According to the Slow Food website “in the West, a meal travels an average of 1,900 kilometres from field to fork. By buying local, seasonal food with less packaging, a family could save 1,000 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions per year, and eat healthier, more delicious food in the process!”

What are people eating?
  • From Romy Räubertochter, Karlsruhe, Germany: Pumpkin and peppers from a friend’s garden, tomatoes and rainbow chard from our garden! Eating local is easier than you think and even more delicious — less km, more taste! #eatlocal #menuforchange #slowfood #SFYA
  • Marti Kennedy, US: Oven-roasted pork spare ribs, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and watermelon, all grown/raised within 10 miles of home. #SlowFood#MenuForChange #EatLocal
  • Nikki Brighton, South Africa: Lunch was organic beetroot salad with calendula and spring onions. My contribution to an afternoon tea party at the SPCA was a green bowl brimming with succulent red strawberries. Supper will be Gillian Milne’s rainbow carrots from Karkloof Farmers’ Market — roasted with baby leeks, bronze fennel and spekboom. Another ‘difficult’ day of eating local.

Rumiz says “We have had a drop in honey production in Italy over the last four years.” According to ESM, the European Supermarket Magazine , Italy’s bees are producing 70% less honey nationally as a result of widespread spring frosts, followed by heat, droughts, violent summer thunderstorms and fires. Hence, the honey on the shelves of Italian supermarkets will be imported honey — mostly from India and China.

“In the North of Italy, we are now experiencing drought. Here it hasn’t been raining properly for the past year and a half,” continues Rumiz. “We see climate change happening and we see that every year is worse than the year before. Olive oil production is down. We hear stories from our indigenous communities that are severely affected, especially those living in areas where there are extreme weather conditions, like the Nordic regions. Yet, we feel like there is very little that is up to us. We blame the Government, we blame institutions, we blame Trump. But people tend to not make the connection between their behaviour and climate change.”

He adds, “This ‘choice’ is not really a choice. When you enter a supermarket today, all you see are products from different companies. For sure, eating local is a way to reduce CO2 emissions. But it is also the only way we can learn about the food we eat and how it is produced.”

Social media trends don’t help. “First, people say you shouldn’t eat meat: eat avocado instead. Then they say it’s endangering Peru, let’s try palm oil. Then we are told palm oil is destroying Borneo... The answer to sustainability is to understand the supply chain. If you eat local, and the food system is around you, you have control.”

Get Involved
  • Eat two meals a week with local, traditional ingredients.
  • Eat only free-range meat raised in your region.
  • Shop at a farmers’ market at least once a week.
  • Buy no imported food or products made over 200 miles away.
  • Publish your videos, recipes and photos on social media using the hashtags #MenuForChange #EatLocal #SlowFood.

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