Locavore Doesn’t Mean “Eat Locals”

Locavore is a new book (if you read as slowly as I do) by Toronto food writer Sarah Elton ( CBC Radio’s Here & Now). It’s a good book — published locally without pesticides or antibiotics, low-fat and high in fibre — but the title could be misleading.

An herbivore (“a” herbivore? now there’s something to fight about) eats herbs, a carnivore mangia il roastbeef, an omnivore eats a family car “specially designed for India”. So I opened this book expecting to learn something about how to take nutritional advantage of people in my neighbourhood. Sure the Emersons are lovely people, but could they be an important part of my diet?

Turns out “cannibalism” isn’t even in the index. Locavore is about choosing, when the choice is there, to buy food that is produced closer to home. Why is that such an important thing to do? Read it yourself, you lazy bugger!

Locavore, by Sarah Elton

Bananas: Guilt-free snacking

My father remembers when bananas used to arrive only periodically. They would come off the boat in Saint John harbour and it would be an event. Now everyone expects bananas to be available everywhere, all the time. And they’d better be cheap.

Last winter I saw Chiquita bananas with a sticker that said “Guilt-free snacking”. I thought, Hooray! Chiquita has come a long way since it was known as the oppressive “United Fruit Company” Pablo Neruda wrote about. Then I thought, Wait a minute, this isn’t labelled Fairtrade.

Of course, “guilt-free” didn’t mean “no blood on your hands”, it meant “not detrimental to your well-being”. Far from guilt-free. Most supermarket bananas are the fruits of corporate malice. Buy bananas that really are guilt-free or do without.

Corporations on Trial: The Banana Murders