Eating healthy
Conservation – Comes to the table
Quick Links:
Farmers markets locations just add your postcode and zoom in..Organic food, Slow Food, Sustainable Living Foundation, Clean Ocean, True Food Network, ACF Green Home. Safe Food Foundation
You are what you eat…
Obviously our bodies can only contain the materials they are fed. More importantly we will be healthy or not so healthy depending on the materials ingested, as well as lifestyle. For this reason, many people believe our food intake should be nutritious, free from contaminants and grown from healthy animals and soils free from chemicals.
When the “food debate” starts many people will quote from hearsay, that Organic food is expensive and looks inferior. It is so much easier to shop at the supermarket and eat hot housed or cool stored Fruit & Vegies. Why does it cost more? Organic is a slower growing method, with greater care so food will be seasonal, grown in soil free from artificial chemicals, and or pesticides.
The main reason for people choosing organics, it is to obtain food from nature, in a clean green way that means good governance of the soil, sea or animals, by the primary producers. Organic food
What makes a carrot a carrot? Well it must contain cells of carrot with walls of fibre and the internal juices with the necessary vitamins, minerals and vegetable proteins that make a carrot a carrot. So for all carrots this “recipe” is very similar, whether organic or regularly grown. So the difference between the organic grown and the regular farmed carrot will be not much in terms of nutrients, the regular farmed one, may have been irrigated and grown a little more quickly so it may be more watery, and therefore less carroty to taste, but very marginally. The main reasons for choosing organic, is an environmental choice, predominantly.
The Clean Ocean organisation is a site creating awareness and good governance of our seafood environment.
SLOW FOOD
The Slow Food Movement is a philosophical approach to food. It originated in Italy where for many centuries food has been at the heart of family life and the art of food preparation has been time devoted to the expression of love for food, family and life.
Slow food is not about a marketing symbol that a restaurant can display a logo on the window, it is an ideology that is more holistic, paddock to plate, the care for the whole of the food production chain, the concept of eating local produce, seasonally.
Slow food is the opposite to fast food, food produced quickly for the masses, often in factories, for fast consumption on the run. As society rushes headlong into technology and fast paced living, many feel that the things being lost are the simple things that allow us to live a fulfilled human experience. There are many groups who are looking more holistically at life and our ecological footprint.
The Sustainable Living Foundation is one such group.
Further info relating to knowledge about GM food can be found at True Food. Further reading about what needs to be addressed in terms of Australia and our likely Environmental crisis is a publication by Professor Ian Lowe Title “A Big Fix” published by Black Inc.
Another useful site is ACF’s Green Home Guide at www.acfonline.org.au where you will also find information on eco-labelling. The current symbols to allow consumers to make wise choices, and the meaning of these symbols.