Food for Thought with Alex Bielak - Local Bytes

It may surprise you dear readers, but sometimes these columns don’t come easy. There are so many things to write about, but sometimes, like a roast, they just need to marinate a while before they’re ready for the oven. So it was with this piece. The individual elements were there, but they needed to sit together awhile before they melded. And I needed to find that perfect last touch to make it all sing. 

I’ve been reading (an overstatement as I only manage a page or two before I fall asleep) a book called ”The Locavore’s Dilemma – in praise of the 10,000-mile diet” by Toronto-based “globavores” Pierre Desrochers and Hiroko Shimizu. The book has attracted its fair share of controversy, but I believe it makes a compelling, heavily-footnoted, case for why many hard-core and uncritical locavores (proponents of the SOLE (Sustainable, Organic, Local and Ethical) and/or 100-mile or less diet) are misguided.

So, probably because I’m reading about the dilemma, I’m attuned to the topic and I’m noticing it everywhere. There was a good piece called “From Field to Table” by Andrew Vowles in the October 2012 Urbanicity all about seeking out local fare. Meanwhile, in the October 18th, 2012 edition of my local paper, the Flamborough Review, Catherine O’Hara has a column about ethical local eating and supporting area farmers.