Comments bastish has made

  • Sailboat certified coffee

    I can see the good environmentalist sitting down to breakfast.  A piece of toast baked locally from local ingredients, a pat of locally produced butter, local jam made from local strawberries grown in season and preserved for those cold winter days. And a cup of fair-trade, shade-grown, organic coffee..... that has traveled around the world raising your food millage beyond what anyone can consider "sustainable".

    Of course I still drink coffee. I'm addicted.  But what is Umbra's advice regarding this conundrum?  I know that when other foods are discussed we are advised to forego such things, such as strawberries when they are out of season, which only makes sense.  I don't eat bananas or pineapple at all because they can't be grown here. But what about when coffee beans are never in season where I live? Is there a fourth certification assuring me that it has been shipped in a sailboat?On Umbra on coffee posted 4 years ago 7 Responses

  • Sustainable eating is cheaper

    You make a lot of great points, and obviously my situation (living in Tokyo) is different than that of the major US cities.  I just want to relate my own experience of how making the decision to eat "sustainable" food actually reduced my monthly expenses.

    Certainly each single item I buy from the local farmers' coop is more expensive, but that added cost is more than made up for by the money I save through my concious decision to eat out less, not buy food I don't need that is imported from places far away, and/or excessivly packaged.

    Look at it this way.

    1 local bunch of carrots = 300 yen
    1 bunch of carrots from China = 100 yen

    200 yen loss right?  Yes, on that bunch of carrots, but eating sustainably also means that I don't buy the pineapple or bannanas that I would otherwise. This now saves me the same 200 yen.  I also see a package of cookies that is wrapped up in a huge plastic bag... my decision to eat sustainably causes me to bypass it.  I loose weight AND I save 200 yen.  My current food bill is now 200 yen less than what it would have been -and I am eating more sustainably. In fact, since I have made the decisison to eat local and sustainable, I eat healthier, tastier, and my food bills have been almost cut in half.

    I do, however, admit to some sacrifice (which seems to be a dirty word.) For example, I don't indulge my urge for raisons near as often as I would like because I can only get those imported from California.
    On To create a truly sustainable food system, we'll need to make some fundamental changes. posted 4 years, 1 month ago 26 Responses