We the people, of the United States of America, have been spoiled rotten. We can walk into a supermarket in January and buy fresh tomatoes, corn, and just about anything else we desire. They’re tasteless and covered in pesticides, but hey, we can eat them all year long!
Up until well in to the twentieth century, you could only eat produce that was in season, and grew locally. Before the invention of the supermarket in this country children often received an orange in their Christmas stocking. It was an exotic treat from a faraway land, and it was priced as such. Tomatoes were grown in the summer, and what wasn’t eaten fresh was canned for winter. Now the finest restaurants in the country feature a “seasonal menu”. Apparently, what used to be the only choice (eating what’s available at the time and grown locally) is now a high-priced luxury.
The amazing thing is you don’t have to shell out big bucks to eat like a gourmet. You can do it every day. Grow your own produce. Think you don’t have enough space? You’d be surprised at the abundance of food a tiny plot will bear. I used to cook for a local soup kitchen that had its own community garden. Participants each had their own small plot in which they could grow whatever they liked, as long as no chemicals were used. They just had to donate 40% of the crop to the soup kitchen. During the summer that I worked there, I had so much fresh food to work with, I couldn’t use it all! And I was feeding an average of forty people a day. I stayed busy making tomato sauces and snapping beans to freeze for the winter. I still ended up handing out a lot of it to the patrons so it wouldn't go bad before I could store it properly.
With hydroponics, container gardening and old fashioned “plant it in the ground” gardening, there’s a way for everyone to provide at least some of their own food. You can grow potatoes in trash cans, for heaven’s sake! Live in an apartment? Check to see if there is a community garden like the one we had.
Sure it’s convenient to just run in the grocery store and grab what you want. But is it worth it? Well let’s see.
According to officials in Florida, if you’ve eaten a tomato this winter from the store, you’ve eaten one picked by a slave. That’s right, a slave. An article in the March 2009 issue of Gourmet magazine outlines the plight of Mariano Lucas Domingo, a Guatemalan man held in virtual slavery for two and a half years. He picked tomatoes; his captor took the money he earned. Over $55,000 all told, not to mention the abuse he endured. He is one of over a thousand men and women freed by law enforcement since 1997. These are just the cases that were prosecuted.
How do those tomatoes taste now? Still ok? Then consider this: We’re in a recession, headed for a depression. The last time that happened, in the 1930s, many people couldn’t afford food. They stood in line for a bowl of soup. But not everyone had to do that. A good many families lived in rural communities and practiced subsistence farming. They had a few chickens, maybe a milk cow, some pigs, and of course, a vegetable garden. The stock market may seem to affect everything in the world, but it doesn’t stop plants from growing, and these families were able to survive no matter what was happening on Wall Street. How many people do you know that do that now?
The 1930 U.S. Census reports a population of 122 million. Today, it’s 306 million. That’s a whole lot more people in front of you in the soup line, because almost none of that number produces any of their own food.
I’m not saying we should all eat only what we can grow. I’m saying that the cost of food is rising all the time, to an almost shocking amount. The less you have to buy, the better you’ll be able to withstand the depression that is steadily bearing down upon us. The fuel costs of transporting food across the country are astronomical, another reason to buy locally at the very least. If you can’t possibly grow anything yourself, please head to the farmer’s market instead of the supermarket. It’s not that far out of your way.
We don’t know how bad things will get this time, but one thing is certain; if there’s food growing in your backyard, you won’t starve.
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