As I sit on a red sofa in Newtown waiting for a meeting to start, I take some time to reflect on stuff and decide, in this cook’s humble opinion, that ‘local,’ ‘seasonal’ and ‘sustainable’ are really excellent. I like these words. They are simple and although they are not new concepts anymore, I don’t think they need to be changed. While I haven’t really thought about them for a while, when I revisit them I realise that these words work for me on a number of different levels.
Local. Thinking locally solves local problems, creates community, creates transparency and embraces people and food, as well as the telling of stories and the swapping of knowledge. Good stuff happens when we think local!
Seasonal. Brilliant. Embracing seasonality is a brilliant way to manage excess, reduce waste, embrace nature and also open up the magical world of working with the rhythm of the planet and celebrating what there is available, right now! When you think seasonally you start to appreciate what you have and not what you do not have. I believe that by simply being in that space you start to want nature to work; you want to be able to feed future generations and you respect so much more of the world around you.
Sustainable. The BIG ONE. This simple word is so delicious that everyone wants a piece of it! Everyone wants to be sustainable, everyone desires this. Cathy in Campbelltown wants to be sustainable, Coles wants to be sustainable, BHP wants to be sustainable, I want to be sustainable – the tricky part is what does this word actually mean in the context it is delivered in? Gina Rinehart’s idea of “sustainable” may be very different from mine but the core of the word is the same. I believe sustainable food systems embrace economics and social enrichment as well as environmental and species-based sustainability.
All that aside, in the world of food I do believe that all of these words don’t mean shit if it is not delicious or if it costs too much money, so the challenge is how to make all of this work in the world. Hold on, time to get off the sofa – will pick this up another time…
Words: Jared Ingersoll, www.danksstreetdepot.com.au.
In the meantime, if you’ve got any ideas about how to make the food industry more sustainable, email them to us at info@ciaomagazine.com.au.
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