Do you remember when you stopped being a citizen and became a consumer? In the United States, at least, we the people are almost always referred to as consumers by the media and government officials. Thinking about it a bit, I have to admit that I personally produce almost nothing but waste which is so conveniently flushed away or hauled away that I never face the consequences of it. Can you imagine the change to packaging or even the materials from which things were made if we had to personally confront all the trash we produce? I don’t have a garbage disposal and I do compost my kitchen and yard waste. I reuse when I can and recycle when I can’t reuse. And I frequently reuse other people’s stuff, buying most of my clothes and many of my books and DVDs at second hand stores. I haven’t forgotten my mother’s lessons in saving paper, string, and rubber bands. Nor have I forgotten my own childhood observation when I lived in the Philippines and observed Filipino children sifting through American trash–because they could make a living on what we threw away.<\/p>\n
Ultimately though I am a consumer, not a producer. This bothers me. Despite my garden in an unusually large yard for this urban area, I couldn’t survive a day on what I grow myself: my single tomato, a handful of pecans, and half a dozen jalapeno peppers, or 8 precious persimmons. I couldn’t even grow those without having water piped in, or being able to drive to the nursery for manures and amendments. Suddenly left without the cheap foodstuffs I take for granted, I’d quickly starve.<\/p>\n
I’ve been very interested lately in following the Angelina Williamson’s experiment over at Dustpan Alley<\/a>. She has taken the challenge to eat locally-grown foods (food grown within 100 miles of where she lives) as much as possible over the next year. She lives in Oregon and has been busily preserving<\/a> the bounty of local farms. And she has her own hens. In sharp contrast, I don’t even have a pantry (much less a nicely stocked one) and I’m excited that living in a town that has both Whole Foods Market and Central Market that I’m able to buy beer from Belgium and sparkling water from Italy. Ouch! Leaving that kind of carbon footprint I might as well be driving a SUV and living in a McMansion.<\/p>\n Angelina got me wondering exactly what I could find to eat in a 100-mile radius from Austin. Texas is a big state after all and 100 miles won’t even get me to the coast to get seafood from the Gulf or to the valley for oranges and grapefruit. Off the top of my head I could think of deer, pecans, and wine. Maybe goat cheese.<\/p>\n Looking into it some more, I discovered Andy and Julia at Eating Austin<\/a> who are also challenging themselves to eat locally-grown foods. Jumping from one of their links I came to the Edible Austin<\/a> resouce page, which lists all sorts of locally available foods and where to get them, including a list of farmers markets and CSAs. (I was a bit surprised to find apples on the list. Apples in central Texas. Who is growing those?)<\/p>\n I also came across Local Harvest<\/a>, a site which helps you find growers by ZIP code.<\/a>. There’s a lot more growing on in my area<\/a> than I’d have guessed.<\/p>\n I’ve been meaning to check out Boggy Creek Farm<\/a> for a long time. It’s quite famous in Austin. But, oooh look! What about Angel Valley Organic Farm<\/a>. Or Johnson’s Backyard Garden<\/a>. Or Green Gate Farms<\/a>. Here’s a cool place I’ve never heard of Barnison Farm. They sell through the Austin Farmers’ Market. We sometimes shop at the Austin Farmers’ Market<\/a> because it’s just a stroll across the river. It’s a growers-only market which includes supplies within 150 mile radius of Austin.<\/p>\n After browsing 10 pages of local growers, I’ve discovered that there is a lot more food available in and around Austin than I ever dreamed. I just need to follow Angelina’s example and think a little more about what I eat and where it comes from and try to make better and more informed choices. I do it with other things (like conserving and recycling). But despite years of following the organic movement, I discover that I am horribly complaisant about my food supply. Angelina, thanks for setting an example, for nudging me out daily habit and piquing my curiousity. Curiousity is always a good first step.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do you remember when you stopped being a citizen and became a consumer? In the United States, at least, we the people are almost always referred to as consumers by the media and government officials. Thinking about it a bit, I have to admit that I personally produce almost nothing but waste which is so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2303"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2303"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5517,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2303\/revisions\/5517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}