Your kitchen & garden

Eat local

World Watch reports that the ingredients for a meal in the average North America home typically travel between 1,500 and 4,000 kilometres, a 25% increase from 1980 alone. This average meal uses up to 17 times more petroleum products and produces 17 times the carbon dioxide emissions, compared to a local meal.

Local foods travel a significantly shorter distance to your doorstep. This means that fruits and vegetables will arrive naturally ripe, fresh and more flavourful! The shorter distance also reduces the fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions associated with the transportation of goods.

• Vancouver Farmers Markets
  Eat Local by contacting your Local Farmers Market Society, a group that connects farmers directly to those who buy their products in Vancouver

   

• BC Association of Farmers Markets

  Listing for markets around the province

• Farm Fresh

  Love berries, apples and peaches? You'll want to head straight to the source. This site's farm directory lists BC Farms and their products

• Farm Circle Tours

  Discover the bounty of the Fraser Valley on this self-guided farm tour. There's so much to know about organic vegetable farms, greenhouses, honey farms, dairies, orchards, vineyards and more

• Association of BC Winegrowers

  Members from the West Kootenays, Okanagan Valley, Shuswap, Vancouver Island, Gulf Islands and the Lower Mainland produce wines made strictly from BC grapes and fruit.

• NOWBC Co-op
  This small co-operative has set up an online farmers market to offer customers a selection of fresh, seasonal, healthy organic produce from local and fair trade farms and processors.  Groceries are ordered weekly and delivered to depots throughout Vancouver for customer collection.

At the store

Grocery stores are not all made the same. When shopping look for signs and labels, or ask the produce manager about the products. Foods in season are more likely to be locally produced, and the prices of organic foods are coming down as the demand for organic produce increases.

Avoid pesticides, go organic

A study by Carnegie Mellon University researchers found that food transport accounts for 11% of food-associated GHG emissions, while production contributes a whopping 83%. Specifically, nitrous oxide and methane - mainly by-products of fertilizer use, manure management and animal digestion - make up a huge piece of the emissions pie. So it makes climate sense to go for organically grown foods as well as local.

• Check out Bon Appetit's Eat Low Carbon Calculator

Know the best foods to buy organic

Peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, lettuce, imported grapes and pears make up the list of the top ten fruits and veggies that are best to eat organic. Incidentally, foods with the least amount of pesticides are onions, avocados, frozen sweet corn, cabbage, pineapples, mangoes, frozen sweet peas, asparagus, kiwis and bananas.

Check out Food News by the Environmental Working Group.

Read Edible Vancouver

Check out this quarterly magazine connecting the people who produce, sell and cook local food with those who eat it. It's free, so you'll have more $$$$ to spend on smoked tuna, goat gouda and organic berries.

Eat less meat

Did you know that raising livestock for food creates more GHG emissions than all the cars and trucks in the world combined? Trees are cleared for pastureland, animals create methane and nitrous oxide and processing and transportation burns fuel. Try eating meat less often. Need ideas? Search the infinite number of vegetarian recipes online for inspiration.

You can also check out the MEATtheFACTS website for information on how meat consumption results in GHG emissions. "According to the 2007 UN IPCC report “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” livestock production is the greatest contributor to global warming".

Grow your own

Is your backyard or balcony looking empty? Why not transform it into a green space - a salad greens space that is! Grow your own vegetables, herbs and fruits and have garden fresh produce all year around!

Save time, money and the environment by using natural yard-care techniques. Check out the Grow Natural program by the City of Vancouver. Grow Natural also encourages gardeners to save water through the Rain Barrel Program and by using Outdoor Water Saver Kits, available to all Vancouver residents.

The Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden offers workshops on natural yard care. Sessions cover all aspects of natural lawn and yard care, including hands-on demonstrations of a variety of mulching mowers and weeding tools, along with organic fertilizers and biological pest control. Call the compost hotline at 604-736-2250 for more information.

Feed the world without starving the planet

Find out what the United Nation's Environment Programme has to stay about food. Their fact sheet on this topic analyses the impact of food production, highlights good practices and provides tips.

Join a community garden

Don't have a yard? Put yourself on the wait list for Vancouver's high-demand, growing network of community gardens. Developing a sustainable food system is one of the projects the Vancouver Food Policy Council is engaged in supporting. As of December 31, 2009, a grand total of 2,029 new plots have been developed, with still others being planned.

Get tips from green food guides

Perhaps because of its broad influence, food consciousness has grown in recent years: from an escalating interest in gourmet cooking, to the vogue of local cuisine, to the resurgence of gardening, to the popularity of farmers’ markets. Our decisions about what’s for dinner have socio-political, environmental, local, global, and personal implications.

BC Hydro's Green Guide on Food serves up tips on ways to reduce your food choice impacts on the planet, your community and your health. Bon appetit.