Why eat Seasonally?
| Published: 15th January 2008 14:58 |
Article written by Emma Allsopp
Why eat seasonally?
Life in Britain and the rest of the world was once dependent entirely on the seasons. Our ancestor's survival depended on our farming skills and knowledge of the seasons, this is reflected in our traditional feast days, later taken over by Christian festivals which are based as are the oldest religions on seasons and farming. Generations learned when to plant and harvest to ensure fresh food was available for as long as possible. Farmers knew exactly when wild foods were ready for the taking. They perfected many methods of preserving foods by drying, salting, smoking, potting and storing food to keep us going through the lean times and to take advantage of abundance. Our year turned to a cycle that was driven by the seasons, with the last autumn harvests heralding the end of the old year and the beginning of the new.
During the Second World War, we realised how dependent of foreign imports we had become and with rationing in place we were encouraged to 'dig for victory', the campaign had the whole nation growing its own food and in better health than at any other time in the twentieth century. After the war, the idea behind the mass mechanisation and industrialisation of farming was to ensure that Britain should never again suffer and be dependent on foreign imports. What actually happened is the price of food has plummeted, and after many years of trade agreements with other nations we now have an abundance of all year round availability and ridiculously cheap food. This coupled with the expansion of modern distribution and retail has actually served to nearly kill off British farming. There has been a recent resurgence in the provenance of our food, it's a trendy middle class cliché now to go to the farmer's market or have the organic box delivered, but just because it's easy to poke fun at people who are doing something differently, it doesn't mean that they are wrong. People generally don't like to think that what they are doing is wrong, and so will ridicule the unusual, but 20 years ago getting your shopping from 3 or 4 local shop wasn't unusual. I remember going to the green grocer, bakers, fishmongers, butchers and hardware store with my mum. I didn't have a rural upbringing, I was born and raised in a city in the midlands, and I'm not old, I'm only 28! So how have things changed so much in my lifetime?
Look around the supermarket in winter there are juicy strawberries and kumquats among the earthy winter root vegetables. Being able to eat what we want when we want has become so much part of our lives that it's hard to imagine a time when you couldn't buy raspberries in January or Brussels sprouts in July. We don't see why we can't have everything, when we want it how we want it. But whose idea of what we want is it exactly? The supermarkets seem to have sacrificed the most important attribute of food, taste. We can buy strawberries all year round but they're not the strawberries I remember, which are still available in July and August. They are strawberries specially bred to be red before they are ripe, allowing them to be harvested unripe packed, refrigerated, stored, shipped and have a weeks shelf life, genius apart from the fact that they are hard, have very little flavour, no natural sweetness and don't have any aroma. Which marketing genius though we'd like these strawberries? Are there really going to be riots in the streets if we can't get tasteless asparagus in December? And where did all this cosmetically perfect business start? I defy you to go to a supermarket and find some vegetables with soil on. Why they think we want every apple we eat to be exactly the same size as the next and the last one we ate, and taste of nothing, I will never know. I find the farmer's market so inspiring, there's always something I come away with thinking, I've struck gold, the next time I go it will be something different. You don't get that with the supermarket, everything's the same week in week out.
It's not just fruit and vegetables the supermarkets have destroyed meat, you can now buy a whole chicken for around £2, wow what good value, chicken is so lean and healthy, or it used to be before the industrially produced chicken took over. Now your chicken has only lived for 12 weeks, has been kept alive with antibiotics and steroids, is genetically selected to be obese, has never seen sunlight, spent it's whole life on an area the same size as an A4 sheet of paper and the litter it lives on will never be changed through out it's life, so by time it dies it will be sitting in a life time of it's own excrement, after its death it is washed in antibacterial wash, injected with water, yeah some bargain! Nobody can think that this is a good thing. I remember not having meat everyday, because we couldn't afford it, why are we prepared to eat the most appalling things rather than go with out. I know plenty of people who ‘couldn't possibly eat offal, oh it's just so disgusting.' But they eat far worse in sausages, chicken nuggets and pre-prepared meals. It is the most bizarre paradox that we'd just rather not know what we're eating than face up to the fact that it's awful.
The overall result of our greed is appalling quality food, produced with pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, antibiotics and growth promoters. Is this really what you want to be eating? Food is the fundamental building blocks of life, pregnant ladies say that they are eating for two, that really what made me look at what I ate, when I was pregnant, I realised my actions were going to have a direct impact on my child. The food we eat becomes part of us; vitamins, minerals, fats, proteins and sugars they are all broken down used an on some level absorbed into the body. We are literally what we eat. It is recommended that we should eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, but if these five have been refrigerated and stored for in some cases many months the vitamin content will have suffered, especially vitamin C which is very unstable. Supermarket vegetables are also bred to bulk themselves out with water making them appear larger more quickly, but reducing their nutritional content. It's not just the taste that we have lost, but the very goodness in our fruit, vegetables and meat. Also be aware of British out of season fruit and vegetables, we have decided in our infinite wisdom that we can grow anything we like, when ever we like in Britain. There are acres of heated climate controlled polytunnels with hydrophonically grown produce. This actually wastes more energy than air freighting in fruit and vegetables. Yet again did the supermarkets really think we would fall for ‘Locally produced' out of season produce? That we wouldn't care about the hugely artificial way in which the produce is grown? There are organic tomatoes grown year round in the Isle of Wight, that aren't grown on soil, they are grown on what is basically loft insulation, in a heated giant tunnel. My first thought was the body who awards the organic status to produce is the Soil Association; there should be a clue there.
So what can you do? It's not practical for everyone to stop shopping at the supermarkets, this year I am going to experiment and see if I can do it. It's a big step we've become so dependent and complacent that I know it'll be difficult to break the ties. There are so many alternatives though Organic Box schemes, Farmer's markets, local bakeries, fish mongers and butchers. It just requires a little effort, for me to play my part instead of passively consuming what I am told I want. If everyone in Britain did this the supermarkets would change, very quickly! If we stop putting our pounds in their tills they will notice. Find local suppliers, the local economy needs a cash injection, the internet has taken so much away from local retailers, a transition that has been made so much easier by the supermarkets, we are so disillusioned with the ‘shopping experience' we may as well do it from the comfort of our own homes. Lets support the local producers, lets reward what we like and punish what we don't, lets take back control of our food!
