Friday, April 25, 2014

Sustainable Food



Now, the usual advice about food is that local is better, but distant is cheaper. For the environment, it really depends on what food you are growing. Citrus grows very well here, but tomatoes need so much water that it is better for the world to ship them in from California, with all of the gas guzzling that includes.
 
What foods are the best in Tucson? Well, edible cacti are already adapted to the Sonoran Desert. Peppers are fine too. Olives need months of preparation before you can eat them, but a pomegranate does not. Citrus trees need help from humans to grow here, but they are certainly better than tomatoes, which need much more water. 




If you want an excellent symbol for sustainability then just look to the chicken. Chickens eat food scraps, weeds, and insects and then produce eggs, a perfect protein. Keeping backyard chickens is a relationship that is easy to sustain for years and decades.

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