Forgot to Blog
Late Blog.... I've had that feeling a lot lately. I go downstairs, only to realize when I get there, I've forgotten why I went. Thought I'd take the opportunity to empty the camera. (whilst I remember)
A very strange stretch of weather we've been having.... even though it may me hard to believe, all the shots on the post were taken over the last week.
Straw B
ale House Update: A snow delay shut down the site for a day. Today, the weather man said: sunny and 13c. Humidity 45%. Label on the stain says: Must be at least 10c and humidity under 75%. So, staining it is then.... stained like mad all morning. Maximum temperature
achieved: 7c. Stain congealed into a messy goo. The 
staining tent is pretty much at capacity. It's currently loaded up with 4X9 fir rafters that (I hope) can start going in next week.
As it's priority one to protect your SB walls, three foot overhangs were built (left). As the house also requires solar gain for heat, the ceiling height was also raised to just over nine feet. This will maximize solar gain in winter months and maximize shade (cooling) in the summer. Two pictures (right) are from the second floor loft. One shows the bedroom and bath, the other if of the view from the family room dormer window.
I came across an article relating to the organic vs locally grown Dilemma. I buy organic when I can, but I'm reluctant to fall for the "organic ripoff". Sorry, but a carrot just isn't worth that kind of cabbage...
Don't buy "Made In China". I was in the market for a thickness planer. (A great perk to building your own house is the justification for buying new tools) The Chinese made model was $100 cheaper and could do everything I need it to do. The replacement blades are also considerably cheaper. I paid the extra $100, (tough for a cheap guy).
1 comment:
Hi Dave! Mike just forwarded me your blogpost about organic vs locally grown. I thought you might find this article written by my friend Dave STeele for Canada EarthSave interesting! Dave is a prof at UBC with considerable knowledge on these subjects. Bon appetit! -Fireweed
http://www.earthsave.ca/files/2007_0708.pdf
100 Mile Diet Not Quite Right
The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon is capturing the interest and imagination of a people around the world. The book describes the authors' personal experiences and difficulties as they made a year-long sojourn into local food. Feeding themselves with nothing that traveled more than 100 miles to their mouths, the authors manage many a gourmet meal as they search the immediate bioregion for their repasts.
The 100-Mile Diet has a lot to recommend it. As the book mentions, produce in North America travels an average of over 1500 miles from farm to table. Processed foods travel an aggregate of much more. Wisely choosing locally grown foods over those from afar is essential for long-term food security and often offers significant ecological advantages. But it's not as simple as it's made to seem.
When we decide to eat locally, we tend to think that we are deciding to live in better harmony with nature. We believe that a local diet is an ecologically sustainable diet. But it's not necessarily so. The 100-Mile Diet is a case in point. While much of it is right on target, other aspects of the diet cannot work in the long run. If all of us in the Lower Mainland adopted the diet described in this book, even slowly, over many a year, the result would be ecological disaster and starvation.
Smith and MacKinnon do a lot that is right and good. They grow much of their own food. They connect with the farmers who grow the rest of it. They eat with the seasons. But even so, they make a lot of mistakes. The authors drive all over the region to gather their food. They get to know the farmers but they negate the major advantage, transportation-wise, of a local diet. When food is trucked or shipped in, the great majority of the weight being moved is the food itself. Carried in our cars, it is but a tiny percentage. It's a trivial point, perhaps, and one easily avoided by the rest of us. Let's chalk it up to Smith and MacKinnon's admirable and very human desire for community.
But another mistake the 100 Mile Diet authors make is more serious. It is in the very composition of their diet. Smith and MacKinnon's 100 Mile Diet is rich in dairy, eggs and seafood. Eggs, cream, buttermilk, salmon all figure prominently. The eggs, and probably the dairy, too, aren't even all that local. The animals were raised nearby, but their feed was not. Strangely, Smith and MacKinnon mention this problem but choose to pretty much ignore it. They hope that local animals may one day be fed with local feed. But the problem is bigger than they realize. Were we to accomplish their goal and each eat local animal products to the extent they describe, our waters would be stripped of their sea life and our lands could supply but a fraction of the 43% of our foods that they supply today.
The 2 million plus people of the Lower Mainland simply cannot be fed on a local diet that includes significant amounts of animal products. It takes many pounds of protein-rich soy and grain to produce a single pound of meat or eggs or cheese. And given the fact that animal agriculture is the number one source of greenhouse gases in the world, it is ecologically irresponsible to raise even grass-fed animals.
Even if you're a strict vegetarian, don't be smug. You may have missed another point that Smith and MacKinnon are a bit weak on, too. It's not just animal products that make no sense. Conventional produce farming is unsustainable, too. Worldwide, the equivalent of 300 million barrels of oil goes into making nitrogen fertilizers each year. Add to that the energy and destruction associated with mining potash, synthesizing pesticides, etc., and the toll is enormous. It is easy to make the case that no matter where conventional produce is grown, it is not local. Too much of it's nutritional content was trucked in as bags of chemicals. Smith and MacKinnon largely sidestep this fact but you don't need to.
Organic agriculture, on the other hand, is far less damaging. So eat organic foods instead. When you buy local organic produce you're truly buying local food. And organic agriculture can be ecologically sustainable. A recent British study found that the ecological footprint of organic foods is about 23% smaller than that of their conventional equivalents. Soil depletion is much reduced on organic farms, and polluting effluents are nearly absent.
While you're at it, avoid processed foods. Smith and MacKinnon got that right. Their diet is admirably rich in whole foods. Even processed organic foods can have ecological footprints in the same league as meats. Food processing is one of the biggest energy consumers there is.
Take the intentions of the 100 Mile Diet authors to heart, but be careful about it. Make sure that the foods you choose are plant-based, seasonal and organic. Don't drive great distances to get it them. And, like Smith and MacKinnon, grow what you can yourself. In the long run, the whole world will be much the better for it.
Post a Comment