Salt of the Earth
Bring out the controversy gloves kids, it’s time to knuckle down to a core issue in the local food movement: does “local” truly represent “sustainable”?
What if the food in question is not actually food, not actually grown, but instead, mined? Yes, I’m talking about that core dietary mineral: salt.
To my utter surprise, I can actually get local salt. I had no idea. As a little kid, I thought it came from those funny cone shaped “silos” in public works yards. (I also thought that pepper was stored in them, since they obviously went together on the table.) As an adult, I realized it was mined and shipped from somewhere, and it annoys me that my scientific brain never thought to ask “where?” until now. I assumed there were salt mines in far away remote places, like the NWT, or Angola, or India. I had no idea that the far away remote salt on my table came from Goderich, Ontario.
Goderich! I’ve driven there! Quiet, unassuming, quaint Goderich is home to one of the world’s largest salt mines, extending for kilometres under Lake Huron. So, bright side: I can get local salt. In fact, two of the most commonly recognized brands of salt in your run-of-the-mill grocery supermarket are Sifto and Windsor, and guess where the second one comes from. (Hint: it comes from Windsor.)
Down side: is a salt mine sustainable? My knee-jerk inner-hippie response is “MINING =BAD”, although I confess to knowing extraordinarily little about the mining and refining processes of salt. The little geological information I have gleaned from minutes of reading Wikipedia is that the Goderich mine is the result of a millions-of-years-old ocean that used to be where we are now. They also have some amazing pictures of vast salt caverns. http://davechidley.ca/corporate/
It would seem that my other, non-local choice would be sea salt, something I am distinctly uncomfortable with, having studied water pollution. I suppose were the ocean less polluted and hard done by, and nearer to Guelph, my choice would be clear, but in the mean time I am at least comforted that my neighbours in Goderich will benefit (at least a little) from my dietary expeditions this summer.
Gillian Maurice
Posted by Mary Cross on February 19, 2012 | Permalink
I Love Wheat
So I’ve always been a little late with trends. I’ve decided that this is the year my household tries out the 100 Mile Diet. We’re cheating a little, right off the bat, because we’re only going to do May-September. I’ve heard that there is a greater challenge doing it all year, with winter needing more advance planning. However, as a test run, we’ve decided eating 100% local food for 5 months is a good way to start.
The second way I feel like I’m cheating is by living in Guelph. I feel like I have a unfair advantage, being located right in the middle of agriculturally rich Southwest Ontario. I started playing with the modern day equivalent of protractor and compass, Google plugins, to draw that decisive circle around my home.
The first thing I noticed, and literally cheered out loud for, was that the Niagara region falls within my 100 Mile radius. Score. I have set myself up with the perfect excuse to gorge on peaches and wines. This could be my best summer ever. After briefly scanning around the vegetable world, I was starting to feel completely set, but with a niggling doubt forming in the back of my mind. First off, a confession: for a Green and a greenie, I don’t really like veggies, or eat nearly enough of them. I am a carboholic. Like some people crave coffee, I crave bread, pasta, pitas, tortillas, you name it – as long as it’s made of wheat.
I suddenly became convinced that all Canadian wheat comes from that great rectangular province, Saskatchewan. I’d travelled through there and seen the grain elevators myself, and had heard since my childhood the stories of the massive, proudly Canadian wheat farms in our own Breadbasket of the Americas. Which, although nicely patriotic, falls way outside the boundary of my newly planned dietary restriction.
Luckily, before panic set in, I remembered there is an amazing tool available to us Guelphites: - the Local Food Map. I discovered that searching for “wheat” lead to one farm, and searching for “bread” gave me a list that made my gluten-deficient brain go into spasms of joy. My ecstasy reached its peak when I learned that I wouldn’t have to drive outside the city, sign up for a share, or have the uncomfortable “so where do you get your flour” conversation with 100 local bakers: I found could buy Ontario flour at a downtown store I’d previously only associated with glorious(ly expensive) cheese, Ouderkirk and Taylor. I am going to become a bread-making 'fiend'.
Stay tuned for some surprising local finds: salt and oils.
Gillian Maurice
Posted by Mary Cross on February 03, 2012 | Permalink
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