NaBloPoMo Day 8 " I am a Locavore! Eating within 100 miles for the environment & Health

 I am taking a break from my usual Snarky Post to talk about the environment. We all know that the environment is a major issue, alot of use have switched from Plastic bags, to cloth ones, or have bought a hybrid car. Some of us buy Carbon Offset Credits, switched our light bulbs, recycle or try and buy green products. This is all good, a nice start and very politically correct. It is hard to sift through all the green washing and figure out what we can do to really have an impact on our planet and community.
 I will not dive into green washing that will be a later post but I will talk about Thinking & Acting locally to save our big blue marble and our health.
  Around a year ago I became a Locavore, what is a Locavore you say? It is eating local food, food grown and raised within 100 to 200 miles from where you live. The environmental impact of food that is produced and shipped from far away is just as bad as that Hummer your local douchebag is driving. It is also not as healthy, as much of what we eat is over processed, full of salt and chemicals to preserve it and does not support local businesses. I am at home 80% local because I just cannot do without Bananas, mangos, Kiwis and and some veggies that you cannot get locally. I also have a addiction to kraft dinner deluxe.  When I dine out I am around 50% local, I will not go to big chain dining establishments like Olive Garden, as the food is processed, shipped, and the money does not stay in the community.

 Yes, if you decide to live this way, you are locked into seasonal fruits and veg, but you also unlock yourself to wonderful local growers, Artisan Cheese mongers, Bakers, and Butchers. Wonderful food that is healthier, tastier, low impact and keeps your money in the community and out of the hands of huge multinational companies. You may not be ready for this, it was easy for me because Since I started to eat this way i lost 85lbs!!!! not strange dieting, not starvation. I eat what I want and do not gain weight.

 With us getting closer to peak oil, where gas will cost 4 to 6 bucks a gallon and a lot of the food we eat will become prohibitively expensive we will be forced to eat this way. It is the way our ancestors ate and then Obesity was not epidemic, and food had flavors other than salty. You may say you shop organic but that is not always local. Because I buy organic Mangoes and the last time I checked they did not grow in Canada. Organic can  also be greenwashing, as it is easy to put that label on lots of stuff that is not really healthy.

 So if you want to be kind to the planet, enjoy your food again, be healthier I will put a few links below for your grazing. Happy Feeding everyone...................................

Canada
http://www.locavore.ca/   a Canadian local food / slow food blog full of resources

http://100milediet.org/ a Vancouver Locavore guide

http://www.getlocalbc.org/en/  a great British Columbia guide to Local eating & shopping

 New York  
http://www.locavorenetwork.com/content/new-york-locavore-overview 

The U.S.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_food 

Locavore Restaurants, Vancouver 

http://www.raincitygrill.com/  Probably the best Local food Eatery in Vancouver & the best Local       Wine cellar in BC

http://www.crestaurant.com/  another yummie place to eat in Vancouver

The Safeway Death March, "Grocery Shopping in Vancouver's West End

It's Thanksgiving in Canada so I decided to talk about grocery shopping. The local grocery store I shop at is Safeway, for my NY friends it is like Walbaums but less Jewish. Last year Safeway opened a bright shiny new store to replace the dank dungeon of a store that was there before. Now you can sit at a starbucks (ick) get westernized sushi, the even have a section devoted to nuts called “The Nut Bar”.
But it does not take away from the Bataan Death March that is grocery shopping and Vancouver has its own unique flavor to this experience.
We have wandering Japanese ESL student who will pose for impromptu photo shoots with cans of peas and frozen poultry. The bottle collecting binners who return bags full of collected bottles whose odor makes shopping for food not so appetizing. The interesting staff, like the one armed milf cashier, the deli clerk with a lazy eye, the bitter old customer service hag and the hottie pharmacist with the personality not unlike a mix of sedimentary stone & a bagel. Shopping at my safeway is kinda like visiting the circus side show while getting a prostrate exam.

I have some suggested rules that I feel safeway could enact to make the shopping experience more pleasurable.

1.No Seniors allowed to shop between the hours of 5pm & 8pm & weekends. ( you are all retired and have all day to shop while we work. So stay home and complain about your health issues and ungrateful grandkids during these hours.

2.Create a photo set for the ESL students complete with produce props and a hello kitty back drop so they do not clog the isles posing for pictures like retail artery plaque.

3.Have a little stand for the binners/dumpster divers to return bottles outside in order to save our noses.

4.Do not allow people to use the self checkout if they have produce and or more than 10 items. Fuck it takes hours for people to look up their star fruit and Siberian organic mangoes on the touch screen.

5.Hire more disturbingly interesting staff it gives the place a carnival feel

6.stop charging 5 bucks for kraft dinner delux, you thieves

7.shoot any customer who complains about a 3 cent price difference when it is rush hour.

8.Just because customer has kids does not give them special rights...just because you bumped uglies and squeezed out a carpet climber does not make you superior. Bunnies and rats do that all the time and do not get to go to the front of the line.

9.Have mobility scooter races on Mondays and allow wagering with meat products.

10.Stop making me feel guilty for not rounding up my change for your charity of the week. If you did not charge 5 bucks for kraft dinner delux I may have had a few extra cents for midgets with irritable bowel syndrome

If you have any grocery store stories or rule suggesting feel free to leave them in my comments.
“Clean up on Isle Three”!!!!!