I've done some research since then, and as it turns out, we all have a lot to learn about asparagus.
The US government had the clever plan of helping Peru many years ago by paying them to grow asparagus. Good idea, right? A developing country makes money, we support their agricultural growth, and we get delicious greens out of it, too! Well, it worked, but perhaps not for the best: Peru is officially the world's top asparagus producer... and the US is the world's top asparagus importer.
Essentially, we paid Peru to put our own farmers (as well as other countries') out of business. And, though we can all put on our rose colored glasses and conjure up dreamy images of Farmer Pablo y su familia feliz, the truth is... we're supporting Mr. CEO y su mansion grande. Juan makes maybe $6 USD a day, compared to the CEO of Dole, who is worth $1.4 billion. Because Pablo is so far away, he's sadly not the primary beneficiary of our dollars. That money goes to shipping companies, the oil companies that fuel them, the brokers who manage them, and the marketers who sell them.
This problem is growing. You may as well wheel your refrigerator up to the Exxon station every week and pump it full of gasoline. Alone, this world re-shuffling of food is leading Americans to consume at least 400 gallons of oil a year, per citizen. Maybe we should also get frequent flyer miles for our dinners, since each food item in an average US meal has traveled about 1,500 miles before landing on our plates.
But the best part? There is a solution: "If every US citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week" (Hopp). Not to mention, developing countries would get to keep their own food, instead of sending it to us. Fancy that!
Local food is just better. Supporting your local farmers is much more beneficial than supporting Big Oil, Big CEO, Big Government, and sending Small Pennies to the real farmers. Plus, it's fresher and tastier!
(I won't even get into the fact that the asparagus season is incredibly short, yet we eat it all year round... that discussion is for another time.) Your mission until then: Eat Local!
Sources:
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and Seven L. Hopp
"World Asparagus Situation & Outlook" United States Department of Agriculture
Posts
sounds like you have or should read any book by Michael Pollan, I read "the omnivores dilemma" it was all right, but he had an interesting section about how close we actually are to digesting gasoline (actually rendering complex foods from oil) wish I could find the quote in my book.
ReplyDeleteOh, i just saw your sources: never mind Pollan (i don't really like him), the two books are very similar.
ReplyDeleteI've read In Defense of Food by Pollan and actually really loved it-- I'm curious, why don't you like him? I also have seen the documentary version of The Omnivore's Dilemma. I'd love to know if you have any other books or documentaries to suggest.
ReplyDeleteOur food does equate with freedom and essentially our rights. I think you would be interested in the relatively new law the U.S government now enforces that makes raw almonds illegal.
ReplyDeleteALL almonds are to be pasteurized and falsely labled as "raw" and sold to consumers. Pasteurization takes away all proteins and enzymes, and kills all health benefits from almonds. They become nothing but fillers.
The pharmaceutical corporations lobbied the government to pass this new law seeing too many natural health benefits from raw almonds. This obviously hinders a buissness that runs on sick people.
If they are allowed to do this for Almonds, they can then do it for EVERYTHING!
@ Al Co
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you that food equates with freedom. The amount of power food lobbyists have in Washington is really scary.
I'll have to look into the raw almond issue... We at the farm have just been discussing the raw milk issue a lot lately. You can read more here http://antiquityoaks.blogspot.com/2009/11/should-raw-milk-be-banned.html at the farm's blog if you'd like.
Thanks for posting!