Shopping with the seasons, close to home.

You’ve probably heard this admonishment before, but here it is again. We all want the foods that we eat to be tasty and nutritious, and there is no better way to accomplish this in one fell swoop than eating seasonal fruits and vegetables grown as close to your home as possible.

Is it possible to grow tomatos in Minnesota in January? Well, outdoors, no, but in a big fat greenhouse with some supplementary artificial light, and a few hundred pounds of chemical fertilizer you can grow orchids in your aunt Tilly’s wig, but I’m sure you’re asking why you would want to. And I say “right”! In much of the western world, we have come to believe that we should have, and in many cases feel entitled to, everything we want all of the time, but it has now become clear that this approach is not optimal, and perhaps not even feasible any longer.

It’s pretty common-sensical. Plant a tomato plant in late May in the perfectly receptive sandy soils of southern New Jersey. Let the natural heat, light, rain, etc. grow the plant with a relatively small expenditure of labor from the grower. Now let’s go back to Minnesota in January. Heat? Very little of the natural stuff around, so the farmer needs to provide at least enough to stop the plants from freezing to death. This equals money out of pocket plus pollution. What about the light? Well, the plant gets some in the greenhouse, but probably not enough, so that means providing artificial light. This also equals more money plus more pollution. Now the soil. One can put the finest, 100% natural soil into the greenhouse, but without contact with the rest of the ecosystem, this soil becomes depleted and/or unbalanced. The only remedy for this imbalance is artificial fertilizers which equals - guess what? - MORE money, and MORE pollution. So one would think that after all of that extra money and pollution one would wind up with an equal or perhaps even superior product. Alas, those of you who have bought tomatoes in January know that the fruit that in season nearly embodies the bounty of summer with its sweet, deep red, and juicy nature, turns out to be a mealy, dry, pale, flavorless, and hard “thing”. Why would anyone pay MORE for inferior food?

So you say “…that’s what South America is for!” Yes, it is true - Winter in the northern hemisphere is indeed Summer in the southern, and while a plum grown in Chile in August is a whole hell of a lot better than a tomato grown in a hothouse in Minnesota in January, distantly imported produce is not the solution either. There is an increasing discussion of the concept of “food miles” and this is the very concept that comes into play in this scenario. It’s again a question of energy expenditure. It takes X amount of energy to drive a load of peaches from the farms in central Georgia to the distribution center outside of Atlanta, and it takes 20X amount of energy to ship (or worse, fly!) the same peaches from Argentina to the port of Miami, and then truck that load into the city of Atlanta. And when all is said and done, the peach is less nutritious (because it had to be harvested “green” to account for ripening in transit), less flavorful (for the same reason), AND, due to the extra transportation costs, it cost more money too! Does it make sense to anyone to buy inferior products that cost more money?

So what’s the alternative? Well, it’s not a new idea, but it IS one that has always been a good one, and one that I’m not sure that we can afford to ignore any longer - BUY LOCAL PRODUCE IN SEASON! Here in New Jersey, the blueberries grown in the western and southern part of the state are KICKING right now, so now’s the time to eat blueberries until they come out of your ears! Make pies. Throw them in fruit salads. Blend them into home-made yogurt. They freeze BEAUTIFULLY - pack up a plastic container, toss them into the deep freeze, and then bust ‘em out in November when the jones for the little purple orbs is REALLY strong. I did the same with asparagus in the months preceding, and will do the same with corn come August and September….

I don’t know about where you live, but around here, farmer’s markets are all the rage, and are springing up faster than toadstools after a rain, and buying from these local farmers is good for so many reasons. First, it supports your local economy on a pure “dollars and cents” level. Second, buying from local farmers helps to reduce sprawl/preserve open space. Third, it reduces the pollution associated with getting food to market. Futher, locally grown food is tastier. Locally grown food is also more nutritious. And, Locally grown food is cheaper as well. Healthier, tastier, cheaper, and economically as well as environmentally more responsible? What’s not to like? Now I realize that for some, buying locally grown produce is difficult to near impossible, and what about all of the imported foods, wines, even WATER! Yes, these items are in no way exempt from the exigencies outlined above, but these are also items that are often unavailable locally in any way shape or form. Also, buying locally is not a limitless contest of “political correctness” or a prescription to deprive yourself of EVERYTHING that wasn’t grown less than mile from your home on a macrobiotic, biodynamic commune. No, like so many things in life, buying locally is a path, an ideal, and one that if pursued with an eye towards making a little progress every day while rejecting a rigid rejection of all things “foreign”, can improve all of our lives on multiple levels with little to no extra effort. To me It’s really just a matter of making the decision to be mindful of your place in the world and minding the responsibility that we all have to our neighbors and our straining environment. And if you can do all of that by just buying good food, why the hell wouldn’t you?

TOM CIOCCO