Water WAnTER: Waste Not Want Not

Water: Think Globally, Drink Locally

Whenever I think about what’s important, water comes to mind. Nothing does a body more good than water. I fill myself with water, I immerse myself in water. The closer I live to water, the happier is my life.

UN Water World Water Day

Water is it.

I would not claim that I use less water than others, but I think about how I use water, and I appreciate water. We use water the way we use the word “it“, without thinking about it, without considering what it means or where it came from or how we would get by without it. It’s crazy how it is always there for us.

Will water always be there for everyone?

If you don’t know what happened in 2000 when an American corporation bought all the water in [Cochabamba,] Bolivia, including the rainwater, then you have not yet seen the most important film so far this century The Corporation (2003).

Another film that should interest all fresh-water drinkers is Blue Gold: World Water Wars (2008), just one of the films being shown at the Ecologos free Thursday evening film series Water Docs in Toronto from March 22 World Water Day until April 22 Earth Day.

If documentaries aren’t your thing, consider the political weight of Canada’s water as examined in the dramatic Paul Gross mini-series H2O(2004).

What can one person do?

Appreciate your water. http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/freshwater/

Let others have their water. http://www.blueplanetproject.net/Involvement/index.html

Don’t stop bathing, but think about how much goes down the drain. Here are a couple of habits I’ve acquired:

1. When running the water till is gets cold/hot, I collect that “waste water” in a pitcher and save it for my plants.
2. BYOTW. I almost always bring a bottle of tap water whenever I leave the house. I’ve rarely had a day when I didn’t wish I had some water, so I try to always have some with me. (The only time to buy bottled water is when travelling in regions where the local water system carries little beasties my gut is not accustomed to and the other options are dehydration or dysentery. I’ve learned to go for sparkling water to make sure it is not bottled tap water).

How Much Water Is Needed For That?

But water is wasted everywhere you look, and it’s not just about tap water and bottled water. Water is inextricable from agriculture, food security, the oil sands, etc., etc., etc. Water is everywhere wasted.

Happy World Water Day!

Conscious Food Festival, Thought for Food

Toronto’s second annual Conscious Food Festival at Fort York National Historic Site, today and tomorrow, is an opportunity to meet local people who bring you good things to eat. Unlike old familiar festivals around town, this festival is new enough that there is no waiting in line, no crushing multitude. Good food, good weather, good space, good music, good karma, good moods, good times all around!

Conscious Food Festival 2011

While other nations starve, most of us in Canada are able to eat anything from anywhere at any time. But think before you consume. Watching what you eat is about more than just your personal well-being. There are other people, other species, and a whole planet to consider.

It’s not as simple as following some no-buy list, or swallowing every “organic” label hook-line-and-sinker. As Dan Donovan told me when his Hooked fish market opened this spring, sustainability is not about which species you buy, it’s about how that fish gets caught. And the same goes for any other food item. It’s important to know where and how that food was grown, and how was it harvested and brought to where you are.

With Chef Martin Kouprie and members of the Pangaea team (and a bag of cookies from ChocoSol!)

At the Conscious Food Festival today, I was fortunate enough to have a good long chat with affable, Fredericton-born Chef Martin Kouprie of Pangaea Restaurant. His new book Pangaea: Why It Tastes So Good is available at the festival at a discount. (And the halibut and ratatouille today did indeed taste so good!)

Other books that will give you thought for food are Locavore by Sarah Elton, Edible City co-edited by Christina Palassio, and In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan.

And if this kind of thing is your cup of tea, keep your eye out for the next Brewer’s Plate fundraiser.

Bon appétit!

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