New Beginnings

The best excuse these marmots can muster

We’ve been enjoying the summer too much to write!

We know, we know— that’s no excuse at all. But we’re back and very appreciative to you for sticking with us.

Thank you!

A quick update

After school ended, Emily moved back to the mainland to enjoy the summer. She hiked the Chief, went camping, is volunteering left, right and center, and as always is learning more and more about ways to live in an environmentally sustainable way. Emily’s take on Vancouver’s sustainability scene will be part of the resurrected Marmot Murmurs blog.

Katie opted to forgo her traditional summers at home in Hawaii and remained in Victoria to uncover what exactly these BC summers are all about (strictly for research purposes). So far she has been enjoying the new garden at her new place. (A post on the wonders of gardening and the wonders of having roommates with green thumbs to come). The unswimmable, but skim boarding, hang-out, drink-coffee-by, and yes— even surf friendly beaches burrowed a place into her little heart as has Nootka Island and week long surf/camping trips.

Both are ready to begin this little blog again.

Why start again?

“Approval of Modified Corn Worries Activist, Farmers.”

If the heading sounds familiar, you probably read it in the Times Colonist or whatever your favorite local paper might be. If you read the article, did you also slap your forehead in frustration (though not quite disbelief)? And if you haven’t read it, here’s the re-cap: The CFIA approved a new GMO corn engineered by Monstanto and Dow AgroSciences.

Have you smacked your head in frustration yet?

How about after this: “ ‘You’d think that a combination of eight GE traits would trigger and environmental assessment, but the CFIA has [provided] no public record of their evaluation’ said Lucy Sharratt, co-ordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network.” (Michelle LaLonde of Canwest News Service). Yes, you read that correctly: eight genetically engineered traits. And it gets better. These genetically engineered traits “tolerate” pesticide products made by both Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences.

Still not bothered? Okay, how about this:

“The CFIA has also conditionally authorized for SmartStax a reduction in the size of the buffer zone, or ‘refuge,’ normally required around genetically engineered corn” (Michelle LaLonde of Canwest News Service).

So let’s get this straight: CFIA approved a GMO without publishing its environmental evaluations and provided less protection to farmers who do not want contamination of their crops by these GMOs. Well done, CFIA. Well done.

Thoughts? Comments? Is this too heavy handed? Is there a good reason for the CFIA's decision? Let us know what you think, and let's get this discussion rolling.

Slow Food: Not Just Escargot

Sorry for the late post, but we had Slow Food on our hands-- and in light of the idea of taking time to get to know the food, the produce, the land... we thought we'd take some time to get to know slow food (though we still don't really know Slow Food and would like your input on some of the questions and issues to follow). But before we get to our Slow Food bit, we'd just like to say thank you for reading, for your excellent suggestions for ways to expand the blog, of different services and organizations we can check out, for your comments, and e-mails!

One suggestion was a Food TV like post (video and all). Another was incorporating more about the "marmot" lifestyle that reached beyond food. We're totally stoked on this idea! (We promise we'll look into other things too, it just so happens food is a big part of a marmot's life, especially in the winter. Gotta stock up to keep warm!) Thoughts?

And now... Slow Food
In A Literary History of Canada (glazed over eyes is a normal response, but it’ll get better) Northrop Frye points out that the key to ‘Canadian-ness’ is not so much bound to the question “who am I?” but rather, “where is here?” Really you could go down the list of great Canadian minds and see that most of them (Margaret Atwood, George Grant, Tim Lilburn, Dennis Lee, Stephen Selmon, David Suzuki, to name a few) are in part pre-occupied by this question of place. What is this landscape we call Canada? What is its geopolitical relationship between the US and Britain? How has it changed and how have we changed it through the continuing processes of colonization? How have and do we interact with land? What does it mean to live here? And by proxy, what does it mean to eat here?

The Slow Food Movement gets these questions. And while Slow Food does not give the definitive answer that the “I Am Canadian” Molson beer ads seem to give (when Molson was still Canadian), Slow Food does set a good foundation for exploring what it means to be in this place by what means to eat in this place.

What is Slow Food?

At the heart of the Slow Food Movement is the connection between people and produce, between consumers and farmers, between respect and knowledge of the land, nature, processes, and culture that shape the food on our plates. In Slow Food Nation, the movement’s founder, Carlo Petrini, points out that it is not enough to read about slow food, “you must meet the small farmers, the people who produce and process food, the people who strive to make the production-consumption system fairer, to render it sustainable and enjoyable.” Slow Food is Wild Fire Bakery, it is the Good Food Box, it is Seedy Saturday, and Moss Street Market. Slow Food is the stance against fast food, against a life style that distances the consumer from the product and producers. The Slow Food Vancouver site describes it as a movement to "counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world."

Despite a set of philosophies we agree with, figuring out a stance on Slow Food was no simple task. Before cracking open Slow Food Nation and The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved, we thought we had the equation laid out and solved. Slow Food + Focus on Sustainability + International Movement= Good.

Apparently we’re not so great at math.

As we learned more and more about slow food, we discovered the equation is much more complex. What began as a fluffy journey into a seemingly ecologically gold stamped and approved movement turned into a fairly impassioned and half thought out discussion on movements that begin from the economic “top.” Surely any true ecological movement would not be one that, simply by practice and by membership fees, excludes the not-so-wealthy. But here is Slow Food—an international movement courting their members’ fine palates with international, artesian food conferences. To join the Vancouver chapter, you have to pay a $90 membership fee. The good news is that if you’re under 30, you only have to pay $45. And as cited in The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved (a book supporting Slow Food), if you want to have a meal with Petrini, you’re looking at a $500 ticket. So far-- not what we’d call a revolution of the people.

Slow Food for Thought
Or is it? At a crossroads, Katie decided to write to her family and in the process tried to work through our conundrum. Here's an excerpt:

'While at a “Remaking the Economy Through People's Eyes" conference sponsored by the BC Insitute for Co-operative Studies, I ran into a woman from Slow Food Vancouver. She reminded me that slow food really is about the connection with the food, the farmers, the processes. And yet I'm not completely sold on a movement that at its core really excludes a huge economic segment of the population. At $90 a pop for a membership ($45 if you’re under 30 or $110 for couples), and links to articles about the movement that cost $5 each (courtesy Globe and Mail), and with food tasting conferences around the globe... it makes the movement chic, it makes it glamorous, but it also kind of makes it elitist.

'On the other hand Slow Foods Canada organizes neat community projects like the Bike the Blossoms event in Vancouver where (just for five bucks) you bike through bike trails and on the way stop off at local farmers' and artesian bakers' booths set up that day. I guess it's a good mix. But should the idea of being connected to your food and knowing where your food comes from really be something limited to people in a certain economic bracket? Should any social movement? On the other hand, I understand that a cool movement also needs to be well funded.

'I also understand that in general, North Americans do not pay for the full cost of their food. Instead, cheap prices come at the expense of externalizing other costs like poor working conditions for labourers on the farms and packaging plants in distant countries, poor conditions for animals raised for meat, milk, and eggs, strain on the soil from fertilizer use and monoculture practice, high GHG emissions as we import these goods, etc. What we don’t pay in cost, other animals, people, and the earth tend to pay for us.

'But perhaps the issue isn't so much the price of local, organic, fair trade foods. Perhaps the issues are the stunted living wage, the high cost of living in general, the need for improved social assistance (and not just through raising income assistance and employment insurance benefits but by creating a system where people on income assistance and employment insurance can actually earn money without being docked dollar per dollar while they're getting back on their feet), or increased funding for soup kitchens, for Beacon Community Center and other neighbourhood community centers that support the Good Food Box initiative.... Maybe slow food is on the right track, actually I'm sure it is, but maybe other social, economic, gastronomic systems need to catch up to the pillars of Slow Food.'

Our Not So Conclusive Conclusion
On the surface, Slow Food equals good food and not just delicious food, but fair, sustainable food that connects people to people, nature to people, place to people. And as Canadians (and the not-quite Canadians among us), as a nation asking "where is here?" what a better way to find out than through food, our relation to it, and how we foster our commitment personally and systemically to eating-- not just good food, but slow food.

Is there something you wanted to hear more about? What's your response to the Slow Food Movement? Are any of you members? As always, we look forward to your comments!

Thanks for reading!
Happy Greening!