Wrap-up

I started writing this blog as part of an assignment for my Environmental science class. I was already quite interested and informed about the buy local movement, but during this assignment I have greatly increased my knowledge. I was glad to be able to share the information and hopefully I swayed at least one or two people to explore the idea and add local products into their lifestyle. I probably won't keep up with this blog anymore, I may add a post or two if I happen to find some new ideas or information that I believe should be shared. I would like to add how much I have enjoyed this semester. This class was by far my favorite of the semester. I enjoyed getting to know my classmates on a much more personally level than I do in most classes. The camping trip was amazing and I will recommend other people to take the class. Thanks to Prof. Heasley for making the atmosphere a relaxed and enjoyable one

Corporate involvement in buying local goods

With many more consumers including myself looking to purchase locally there has been a slow but growing segment of large retailers that has started to take notice of this growing demographic and they have started to make changes. Companies such as Meijer, Wal-Mart, and Chipotle grill among others are adding local goods to their selection. Meijer has a section solely devoted to Michigan made goods. While the section is small now, it makes it easy for people like myself to see the local goods they carry. Wal-Mart has "committed" to buy more local produce when it is in season. I don't go into Wal-Mart often, especially for produce, but when checking it out recently I found no way to identify anything locally grow. This could be because it's currently December and most things are out of season, maybe in the southern part of the country you would have better luck. Chipotle has committed to purchasing "food with integrity". This includes purchasing foods that is good for animals (without antibiotics or addition hormones), people, and he environment. If you haven't been to Chipotle I highly recommend it. One opened on West Main in Kalamazoo around a year ago. It's comparable to Qdoba, but I like the fact that they support the environment more than most corporate chains. Here's a Chipotle commercial that aired during last years Super Bowl. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMfSGt6rHos 

Here are some links to some information about Meijer, Wal-Mart, and Chipotles stance on buying local

http://www.chipotle.com/en-US/fwi/fwi.aspx - Chipotle
http://www.mlive.com/food/index.ssf/2012/02/meijer_adds_49_new_michigan_pr.html - Meijer
http://instoresnow.walmart.com/Food-Center-locally-grown.aspx - Wal-Mart

What are the benefits of becoming a locavore?

Eating local organic foods can benefit yourself, the environment, and the local economy. Many times when you buy locally grown foods they are much more fresh. When it comes to fruits and vegetables this often means that they pack more nutrients than those that have been traveling for a week or more and may have been picked before they were fully ripe. Most of the time they also taste much better than their conventionally grown counterparts. If the produce you buy is organic you obviously don't have to worry about what chemicals they are covered in that may be put into your body.

The environment is benefited in many ways as well. It is estimated that the average American meal travels about 1500 miles before reaching your plate. This causes a lot of unnecessary fossil fuels to be burnt in order to ship it around everywhere. By eating local you greatly cut down on the amount of fossil fuels and CO2 emissions that go into shipping the food we eat. The environment is also benefited if the foods are organically grown. The local ecosystem remains much more healthy without all the pesticides, herbicides, and other deadly chemicals that come with conventional farming being released into the environment.

The local economy also gets a big boost when people buy local foods. Money spent with local farmers, growers, and locally-owned purveyors and restaurants all stays close to home, working to build your local economy instead of being handed over to a corporation in another city or country. Since the food moves through fewer hands, more money tends to get to the people growing it. According to the USDA, off farm costs including marketing, processing, wholesaling, distribution and retailing account for 80 cents of every food dollar spent in the U.S., leaving roughly 20% for the farmers. By buying foods at your local farmers market you can cut out a large part of these unnecessary costs and put more money into the pockets of your local farmer and your community.

Kalamazoo People's Food Co-op

The People's Food Co-op (PFC) is a consumer-owned cooperative business, which means that it is owned and controlled by the people who use it. They have been around since the 1970's and have been located in multiple locations throughout Kalamazoo. There are currently around 1700 owners of this particular Co-op. Everyone in the community is welcome to shop there. Their mission statement is to create access to food that is healthy for people, land, and the economy. They currently carry a wide variety of products including produce, grocery, deli, bulk, refrigerated, frozen, bakery, and health & wellness. The PFC tries to focus on fresh, local, delicious, and organic products at reasonable prices.

I currently try to buy as much of my produce and dairy products from the PFC as possible. They make it very convenient to find which products are local and which are not. Most products have an easily visible sign stating where the product is from such as this Fresh Apple Cider (A bit expensive this year as a result of the very small apple crop). I find that as compared to organic products from large retailers such as Meijer or Harding's the prices are very comparable and some are even cheaper. Of course prices are a bit more expensive than that of those products who are produced by large industrial farms, but you get what you pay for. For me there are no substitutes for fresh local organic produce. I actually in fact can't hardly eat a conventionally grown store bought tomato anymore after eating my own and other locally grown ones all summer. If you haven't ever really ate fresh organic produce I highly recommend it.

By supporting local farmers the PFC keeps money in the local area and also reduces the harmful effects on the environment brought on by transporting goods thousands of miles. It is estimated that they kept around $300,000 dollars in the community last year alone that would have normally got sent to other parts of the world.

The PFC is also home to the Can-Do Kitchen. The Can-Do Kitchen is a place that allows local small-business owners/Entrepreneurs to produce their food products in a large and clean kitchen that they normally wouldn't have access to. The Kitchen is rented out by the hour. Many of the products are sold in the PFC and other local stores. Cooking classes are also offed in the Can-Do Kitchen throughout the year. If you haven't checked out the PFC I highly recommend it. There is something for everyone and the employees are very friendly.

eaarth - Bill McKibben

I must say that after reading most of eaarth by Bill McKibben I am feeling a bit more gloomy about the current state of our civilization. I guess I may have been one of those people that Mr. McKibben talks about who thought of global warming as a problem for "tomorrow" or a problem that our grandchildren will have to deal with. I knew the situation was getting bad and that global warming was happening today, but I guess I didn't really realize the full effects of what could happen in my lifetime and what has already happened in the last couple decades.

Something that caught my eye was in the chapter "High Tide" when Mckibben is talking about making the transition away from fossil fuels. He states that "Almost every environmentalist around the world is working to raise the cost of fossil fuel, in the hope that higher prices will accelerate the switch". When I first read this I was a little bit confused and maybe a little frustrated. Almost everyone in our country uses these fossil fuels every day to get to school, work, and to heat our homes and they are trying to RAISE the cost?! I guess it's one of those things where everyone wants a better cleaner environment just as long as it doesn't negatively effect them in some way. This is sort of the "not in my back yard" mentality that is common in our society. I don't think I really thought about that the best way to make the transition to a new source of energy was by making the current source too expensive to use, but it is quite obvious when you think about it. For example the sale of electric vehicles and natural gas vehicles has started to really take off now that oil prices are consistently high. The technology has been there for a while, it just wasn't economically feasible to build and use such vehicles when oil was so cheap.

Later in "High Tide" Mckibben is talking about the effects of a rising ocean and a study by the U.S. department of Transportation. He mentions that a small rise in ocean levels would increase the potential for flooding in Manhattan and other parts of New York. This jumped out at me because of the major flooding that just happened in the New York area. The study was so far pretty correct in that regard, although I don't think even Bill McKibben himself would have thought it would happen so soon.

I have only glanced through the chapters past the first two, but they look a bit less gloomy than the first couple chapters. I've been really intrigued by McKibbens writing so far and find it very easy to read so i'm looking forward to finishing the book in the near future.

Becoming a locavore

While eating 100% local foods and becoming a pure locavore in Michigan may be near impossible, it is quite easy to make some small changes in you life in order to start incorporating local foods into your diet. I myself set a goal of trying to include at least one ingredient of each meal from a local source. This is of course fairly easier in the summer/fall and much more difficult in the winter and early spring. I have the luxury of having family that raise our own beef, chicken, and turkey so getting free range organic meat is very simple year around. So I will focus more on what the average college age person can do without owning a farm.

The easiest and in the long term cheapest way to start is simply growing your own food. I myself live in a apartment as do many college students students my age, but that shouldn't stop you from growing a few vegetables that you can include in your diet. If you have a South or West facing balcony or porch it is easy to grow almost anything (an east facing balcony could allow you to grow some plants, but the plants are likely to be less productive.). I myself started with growing tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, beans, and herbs with a south facing balcony with great success. I went to the local Hardings store and received around 10 five-gallon buckets from them for free, they even had them all washed out and ready to go. I'm assuming this is quite common and probably even saves them space in their dumpsters so they were more than happy to get rid of them. These were great for the tomatoes and peppers that require relatively large amounts of soil to grow in.  I also had a few smaller containers that I grew the  lettuce, beans, and herbs in. (the herbs are wonderful as they can be grown inside year around)

I created a double bucket system that I read about, which allowed for better more thorough watering and a stronger root structure. If your interested in growing tomatoes, which go through a ton of water in the summer heat, I recommend checking into it out you don't have to water them multiple times a day or worry about over-watering them. Here's a link with a brief overview. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7nbzk74ARE

The only major expense I had was the soil. I opted to purchase some organic potting soil which wouldn't require any additional fertilizers throughout the season.  I could have went and got some soil for free somewhere, but by this point I just wanted to get started and didn't feel like transporting a large amount soil in my car and this way I avoided any pests that could have tagged along.

The harvest of these vegetables lasted from around the beginning of July to the end of August. At times it got to be a bit of a hassle and the tomatoes completely covered the balcony toward the end of summer, but it was well worth it. I experimented with canning, although I have not bought a pressure cooker yet. I am under the impression that any highly acidic vegetables are safe to can without the pressure cooker, so I just canned the tomatoes which I literally had a hundred or more of. I just started using some of these recently and they have turned out great. Canning is very simple and I plan on doing many more items next fall.

You can also access many locally grown foods at your local farmers market. There are even farmers markets that only allow locally grown foods (some of the larger markets may contain foods from hundreds of miles away or more. There are usually signs posted at each vendor that says where they are from). The People's food co-op of Kalamazoo hosts a 100-mile market each wednesday from spring through fall where you can find an assortment of local foods. Here is a link with more on the 100-mile market http://swmichigan.secondwavemedia.com/devnews/100milemarket0510.aspx

The co-op itself also carries a large variety of local foods inside the store. I won't go into details now as I will be making a visit shortly and going into depth on the store in a future post.

So to sum it up. You can grow it yourself and can things to make the foods last though the winter months. You can visit farmers markets to find a larger variety of food that maybe you can't grow yourself. Lastly, You can visit stores such as co-ops that carry many local foods that larger stores wouldn't carry. My experience so far is a good one. I find it rather easy to and enjoyable growing my own foods, and they are usually better tasting than store bought vegetables.

Hope, Human, and Wild

I have just finished reading the first few chapters of Bill McKibben's "Hope, Human, and Wild" late last night. I must say that so far I enjoy the reading very much. I like his style of writing, especially the way that he compares and contrasts different areas of the world with specific examples. The place that Mr. McKibben visited that most stood out to me was Curitiba, Brazil. He spent about a month in Curitiba interviewing various people and visiting many places.


Curitiba is located in mountainous southern Brazil and has become a perfect example of how a city should be designed. Even while the cities population has skyrocketed the streets remain well organized, there remains a lot of green space in comparison to other large cities, and most importantly people there remain happy. All of this didn't happen by accident of course. Most of it can be attributed to Jaime Lerner who served multiple terms as mayor of Curitiba.

Jaime Lerner first became mayor in the 1970's and almost immediately started transforming the city not for cars, but for the people.  Lerner placed an emphasis on having people around him, including many architects, that wouldn't say "this can't be done" and instead would find creative ways to make things work.  He believed  in three main concepts in developing new ideas which were frugality(costs), simplicity, and speed. While keeping things relatively cheap and simple he could provide great services such as transportation or public parks without draining the city's budget. At the time of writing the city was operating on a budget of about $156 per capita compared to $1,279 per capita in Detroit.

The public transportation in Curitiba was in my eyes their greatest accomplishment. It not only allowed the growing population to travel around the city without the need for more roads or bigger roads, but also reduced pollution throughout the city. Public transportation in Curitiba consists almost entirely around buses. While many large cities at the time were investing in expensive subways, Jaime Lerner decided that subways would have been too expensive and so instead opted to recreate the cities bus systems. As of 1993, 1.5 million people a day were riding the buses. The buses have their own dedicated lanes which allows them to travel faster and get people where there going faster. This avoids both the buses getting stuck in car traffic as well as cars getting stuck behind buses, which from experience in even a comparatively small city such as Kalamazoo can get quite frustrating no matter what side of the situation you are on. The city doesn't need to subsidize it's bus system the way cities need to subsidize their subway systems and the system actually turns a profit. Besides the dedicated lanes, Lerner also implemented longer hinged buses to get more people on each bus and created "tube stations" where people could load and unload much faster greatly increasing the speed and efficiency of the bus system.

http://blog.inpolis.com/2012/03/14/curiciba-latin-americas-green-city/