JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2007
The E-coli spinach scare this last September (which followed earlier contaminated food scares regarding cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, strawberries, raspberries, and cantaloupes) has an obvious solution: grow your own.
That’s what we used to do... long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away...until the development of the refrigerated truck in the years after World War II changed all that in the name of progress and making a buck. Economies of scale in California mega-farms made it cheap and convenient to buy produce from ever bigger supermarkets instead of working our own backyard plots. It also drove local truck farmers out of business.
We used to raise our own meat too. Once a year my father would herd a steer into the barn, shoot it, and then stand aside as an old Swedish immigrant cut it up on the straw-strewn floor. It doesn’t seem all that sanitary.
Yet E-coli wasn’t a problem then. It’s a development of the last 20 years as the speed of modern-day meat processing has resulted in unclean carcasses whooshing through what is essentially a meat factory and ending up on our dinner plates. The runoff from giant feedlots can also contaminate ground water with e-coli, which later turns up irrigating mega-fields of vegetables where monoculture is the name of the game. Pesticides are required in these operations because the first hint of a pathogen could wipe out the entire crop—or contaminate it so quickly that the population of the country is at risk.
Author Michael Pollan terms this approach “industrial food,” and it’s how most of us get meat and produce nowadays. Organic growers are not immune since the ones who sell to national supermarket chains also need to practice economies of scale in order to compete. Pollan terms their operations “industrial organic.”
The only way to have safe, good-tasting meat, vegetables and fruit is to grow it on small local farms practicing sustainable agriculture—or in your own backyard.
Of course we can’t keep a cow and chickens in a city backyard. But we can all do more than we currently do. Lettuce and spinach can grow in a window box on your deck. Eggplants and peppers are handsome plants for a patio container. Gorgeous Swiss chard could edge a flower bed. I once had a “rhubarb hedge” in my front yard until the tree next door shaded it out. Brand spanking new subdivisions need trees? Why not plant fruit trees? To get more ideas, seek out Rosalind Creasy’s “groundbreaking” book, Edible Landscaping.
For the rest, frequent farmers’ markets or join a CSA (a Community Supported Agriculture operation); there are now several in the area. Sometimes you’ll save money, and sometimes you won’t. But consider this: when it comes to buying a new TV or a new car, most of us are willing to spend a little more to get that special feature we want. Surely our health and the chance to eat truly good-tasting food are worth a little more as well.
