DAY 94_SUMMARY: FOOD

16 November 2010

For the last few posts I would like to think back and summarize how my life has changed during this project and what I have learned...

I'll begin with what was both the most difficult part of this project, and the most enjoyable- food. 

Looking back, having started the project in the middle of August it should have been REALLY easy to find local foods.  The middle of August in Minnesota is just about the peak of local food production, almost all vegetables can be found locally grown.  However, despite this plentiful bounty of local produce it was really difficult to get a handle on what things I could prepare with it using other ingredients (cheese, flour, oils, dairy....).  It took a while to seek out and find local milk, local flours in bulk, local butter in a compostable wrapping.  I compromised on the cheese, because although there are many local cheeses available they are all wrapped in plastic.  This became the only item I bought in packaging. 

After the first few weeks of the project I had figured out where to get most of the ingredients I needed for cooking locally and without packaging.  Many of the things I had a habit of cooking with however; olive oil, rice, avocados, soy sauce and many spices were no longer available.  I had to learn to cook many dishes that normally I wouldn't have prepared for myself.  Potatoes with mixed vegetables became a staple.  I learned to cook all bread products from scratch- loaves of bread each week, muffins, tortillas, crackers.  Made a lot of homemade pasta sauces and tried pizzas of all different kinds.  Below is a summary of many of the foods I made out of local ingredients during 100 days:

I had the idea to begin growing my own food indoors to have a food source after the growing season started to die down.  On day 1 of the project I planted a variety of of vegetables: tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumber, beans, onions, greens, and herbs to see what would grow with the available artificial light I had.  Having never grown a vegetable in my life I learned about gardening by watching my little sprouts slowly start to become recognizable vegetables.  I made plenty of mistakes growing the first few batches of seedlings and the grow table has gone through a few evolutions of goals.  My first idea was to have a variety of vegetables and keep whatever grew the best (not knowing if anything would have enough light to fruit).  After accidentally scalding the majority of my first seedlings (I left the plastic seed flat cover on too long), I began to reevaluated what kinds of plants would be most practical to my situation.  Because most vegetables are able to be stored (whether dried, frozen or canned), I decided to focus on growing what couldn't be stored very well-greens.  I started to grow a lot of microgreens which grow quickly and can be harvested after only about a month.  This was going fairly well until I was infested with aphids. My continuing battle with aphids was one I didn't know I was going to have to have with indoor plants.  While it was easy to pick the aphids off of most of the single plants, they were almost impossible to get rid of on the densely planted microgreens.  I ended up having to get rid of a lot of the greens and went back to focusing on growing some vegetables. 

Around day 85 I got my first flowers on vegetables and realized that without insects and wind to pollinate plants I would have to play the role that nature usually does.  After 90 days I finally have my first fruiting plants with a little bell pepper growing!  This is really exciting because I was starting to doubt that any vegetables would have enough light to produce fruit. 

My new plan for the grow table is to make a habit of planting a few new vegetables every month, so I can have a continuous supply of at least some fresh produce.  Below is a timeline of the grow table over 100 days:

click to enlarge

Lastly, it was interesting to explore restaurants that advertised themselves as local food focused.  I found that there were many exceptions to their 'localness'.  While 'local' dishes are offered year-round, they are only truly local when the food is in season.  Many restaurants I ate at didn't offer many ( or any) local wine/beer, and all used olive oil instead of sunflower oil. 

I learned to can, dehydrate and blanch vegetables for preservation, and tested how long I could store potatoes, onions and garlic.  I ate only preserved foods for the last month and found that it would be really difficult to eat nothing 'fresh' for the 8 months of the year that fresh local produce is not available. 

DAY 93_DO SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF (ELECTRIC COUNTS)

15 November 2010

One of the interesting realizations I've had during this project is that we need to have different our attitudes about the various resources we use depending on our habits of use. 

I blogged earlier about identifying the big water users in your lifestyle and working to reduce them as the most effective way to reduce water use (and live within our water budgets "Don't sweat the small stuff-Water use" (http://100dayswithoutoil.blogspot.com/2010/10/day-60dont-sweat-small-stuff-water-use.html).  Electricity, however, seems to have the opposite story to tell.  While there are some very high-wattage appliances I use regularly, they are often the ones that only get used for a brief amount of time, so they don't end up being the main energy users.  On the other side, many of the seemingly small energy users (a single light bulb of only 60 watts, or even the fridge at 68 watts /hour) end up being big energy users because they are used almost all day.  The small stuff adds up, wattages need to be taken into account but the time-of-use is critical in electricity counts.

The following pie charts show a comparison of watts per hour of energy users vs watts per day:

 As you can see, the appliances with the highest  watts per hour (hair dryer, toaster oven, microwave) are very different from the appliances that actually contribute to most energy use as seen in the watts/day pie chart.  The biggest energy users when taking time of use into account end up being light bulbs (we have about 6 60 watt bulbs on most of the time), the refrigerator and the grow light.  Each of these energy users are have fairly small wattages compared to some appliances, but add up to a lot throughout a day of use.

This chart shows the two values next to each other- Watts per hour vs Watts per day.  The three biggest energy users are in the dashed boxes, notice how small the wattages/hr are compared to some other appliances that don't end up adding up to much!

DAY 92_HAND POLLINATION

14 November 2010

I'm finally getting flowers on my bell peppers and jalapeno plants!  Being that my plants are growing inside, however, means that there are no insects to pollinate the flowers into fruit-bearing plants.  This is a problem that greenhouses run into because of the lack of insects, as well as some small city gardens where the insect population isn't in full swing. 

There are two kinds of pollinating plants; " those that produce male and female blossoms, and those that only produce one type of flower. The former include plants such as zucchini and squash, cucumber, and watermelon. In the latter category are eggplant and bean. These are called "perfect", "bisexual" or "complete" flowers because everything is contained within each bloom. Hand-pollinating is not difficult for either type of plant, but the approach is different" http://vegetablematter.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-hand-pollinate-your-vegetables.html

The good news is pollination is fairly simple to simulate.  One of the easiest ways is to introduce ventilation fans which allow the pollen to circulate from flower to flower.  In the same way, shaking the plants which flower buds gently will allow pollen to fall.  If this doesn't work, however, you can pollinate by hand using a small paintbrush or q-tip. 

With plants that produce male and female blossoms, the females can be identified by a tiny vegetable bud growing at the base of the flower.  To pollinate this type of plant, snip a few of the male blossoms off of the stem, remove the petals, and shake pollen into the female flowers.  For plants whose buds have both male and female parts, I used a Q tip to transfer pollen from the male 'stigmas' onto the single female 'anther' in the center. 

My understanding is that the blossoms will close up when pollinated and begin to grow the fruit.  If the flowers are not closed up after a day or so, try pollinating them again. 

Good luck little peppers!

bell pepper flower

green bean flower

DAY 91_FOR THE LOVE OF OIL

Oil creates the illusion of a completely changed life,
life without work,
life for free. 

The concept of oil expresses perfectly the eternal human dream of wealth achieved through lucky accident.

In this sense, oil is a fairy tale and like every fairy tale,

a bit of a lie.


Ryszard Kapuscinski (quoted in Crude by Sonia Shah)

deepwater horizon 4.20.2010

DAY 90_NO IMPACT MAN EXPERIMENT

12 November 2010

One of the people to blame for me doing this project is Colin Beavan, writer of the book No Impact Man, and movie of the same name http://noimpactproject.org/movie/.  A writer in New York City, Colin drags his wife Michelle and baby girl along as he attempts to change their lifestyles to be as 'no impact' as possible for one year. 

In phases (an idea in retrospect that I would have copied), the Beavan family focus on changing the following aspects of their lives one at a time: Consumption, Trash, Transportation, Food, Energy, Water and Giving Back.

For one year, they don't buy anything new except food, eliminate trash as much as possible by composting and shopping at farmer's markets, get around only by bicycle and scooter, eat locally, turn off their electricity (including heat and refrigeration) and try to find ways to improve their environment both environmentally and socially. 

Sound familiar? Yeah, I saw the movie last summer when brainstorming ideas for my thesis project and was immediately brainwashed.  There are some really beautiful moments of their family becoming closer and learning about what they really need while doing the experiment that are captured in the movie.  What could be looked at as drudgery and sacrifice they find ways to use their situation to their advantage, kicking a TV habit, losing weight, spending more time together, and reducing their desire for material things.

Although I got a lot of my ideas of how to frame my project from watching the Beavan's experience, I thought it would be more relevant to give the project a scenario that would give me clear 'criteria' or 'rules'.  Although I focused initially on '100 days without oil', it has morphed into more of '100 days living within an energy, food and water balance'. 

YES! Magazine has asked me to participate in (and blog about) doing Colin's one-week No Impact Man Experiment http://noimpactproject.org/experiment/.  This is basically a one-week trial of what his family did for a year.  Each day is a focus on a new aspect of the project.  Hundreds of people across the country and world sign up to try the experiment which is held a couple times a year, and write about their experiences. 

While I have some criticisms No Impact Man after doing my own version, it will be interesting to compare our methods.  No Impact Man is an expereiment admittedly driven by guilt.  The subtitle of his book is: Adventures of a Guilty Liberal who attempts to Save the Plant and the Discoveries he makes about our Way of Life in the process.  While guilt is certainly a motivator for people, it isn't really a sustainable motivator.  I outlined the motivation for my experiment to be one of understanding how to survive in a post-cheap oil world.  By eliminating the 'guilt' or 'choice' factor, I am allowed to focus more on how we will make these changes, but have realized at the end of this project that it does all come down to our choices, and addressing that is extermely important. 

Colin's experiment seems to more vaguely define what 'no impact' is, allowing himself to pick and choose what aspects of his life me would like to change.  At the same time, they radically change some aspects of their life by not using any electricity.  Because we will never have NO energy, I feel that it is more relevant to play out a scenario of what may be happening in our futures.  Our projects are similar in that, neither one of us is trying to say that we WILL live this way at some point or even SHOULD live this way.  It is more of a test of our dependencies on systems that we were born into and didn't necessarily choose.  By taking many of the luxuries we have (because of energy resources of oil and coal) away for a while, we are allowed to see our attachment to them.

While his family goes back to their 'old' habits of living in some ways at the end of the project, they keep many of the changes and promote their experiment through their testimonials that their experience made them happier and healthier, gave them more time and saved them money. 

Needless to say, I haven't necessarily come to all the same conclusions. 

Starting Jan 3rd, however, I'll give No Impact Man a chance, for anyone who wants to join along, here is a link to the experiment: http://noimpactproject.org/experiment/

DAY 89_FOOD LOCATIONS

11 November 2010

The graphic below is part 1 of a comparison of where the food I have been eating before and during this project is coming from.   While all the food I am eating is labeled as 'local' below shows the locations of creameries, flour mills, farms, and orchards which have provided me with 'local' food throughout the 100 days.  (click to enlarge)

The co-op defines 'local' as any product which

• can be delivered to the store within a day of travel or
• is produced in Minnesota or the bordering states.

While the majority of my food is coming from within about a 75 mile radius, there are a few notable exceptions.  I was actually fairly surprised after mapping this out visually with mileage radius lines by how spread out many of the foods I am eating are.  A 75 mile radius of food is still a very different scenario than local foods being sourced from within the boundaries of a community or metropolitan area. 

Here is a brief breakdown of where each 'staple' food I have been eating is coming from:

FLOUR:
Whole Grain Milling
Located in Welcome, MN
120 miles away
http://www.wholegrainmilling.net/contact.html
PASTA:
Dakota Growers
Located in New Hope, MN and Carrington, ND
10 miles away
http://www.dakotagrowers.com/

MILK + HEAVY CREAM:
Cedar Summit Farm
Located in New Prague, MN
30 miles away
http://www.cedarsummit.com
GREENS, TOMATOES, PEPPERS, ZUCCHINI, ONIONS
Garden's of Eagan (Our co-op owns this organic farm)
Located in Farmington, MN
30 miles away
http://www.gardensofeagan.com/index.php
EGGS:
Harmony Organics
Located in Morristown, MN
50 miles away
http://www.harmonyorganics.org/5.html
BUTTER:
Hope Creamery
Hope, MN
70 miles away
http://www.wedge.coop/grocery/hope-creamery
APPLES, PLUMS:
Hoch Orchards
LaCrescent, MN
125 miles away
http://www.hochorchard.com/


SUNFLOWER OIL, POTATOES:
Driftless Organics
Soldier's Grove, WI
150 miles away
http://www.driftlessorganics.com/

CHEESE:
Hard cheese from Sartori Cheese
Located in Plymouth, WI
275 miles away

Slicing and Cheddar cheese from Widmer Cheese
Located in Theresa, WI
250 miles away

All of my food is coming from within a 300 miles radius.  While it's still better than the 1,500 mile radius that defines the average American dinner, it still isn't anything to be yelling about.  While my cheese and veggies aren't coming from California or Florida, they are still a stretch of the term 'local'.  However, any of these farms and businesses COULD be located around Minneapolis.  They aren't, simply because there still is not enough of a demand for it.  For most people, the motivation for buying local is to support local economies and eat fresher food. The scale of local foods operations cannot possibly compete with large-scale food production companies which distribute their products to stores all across the nation.  As out transportation fuel sources become increasingly expensive, however, the motivation could become more economically based. 

On the upside, I get to eat a buch of  super-tasty, local foods.  These businesses are often very small-scale, family run operations.  They take pride in the foods they are growing and making and you can tell by the taste.  It is interesting to go on the websites and read the stories of these businesses, they are often very transparent about their processes and growing methods. 

Some great websites on local foods in MN are here:

http://www.localfoods.umn.edu/
http://www.mnproject.org/
http://www.slowfoodmn.org/local.html
http://www3.mda.state.mn.us/mngrown/
http://www.mfma.org/

DAY 88_HOW LIVING WITHOUT OIL IS LIKE CAMPING

10 November 2010

6 reasons camping is like living no oil (and the lessons I learned from sleeping in the dirt)

  1_You shower less

Camping may be many people's only experience going a week or more without showering-it was mine before this project. With no easy access to water/showers and the fact that you are going to get all sweaty and grimy every day just after you get up, whats the point?  I  haven't necessarily felt smelly or dirty taking quick showers twice a week during this project.  The harder part was just ditching the habit.  I had a firmly established morning ritual and routine which was ingrained into my head since sometime around 7th grade probably which included getting all wet every morning and then drying off again.  Don't get me wrong, when it's shower day I'm ready and its time, but getting another 20 min of sleep every morning and saving energy not having to dry my hair  has been a change that I could get used to.

2_Cooking dinner is an event

Camp dinners are a big deal.  Everyone is hungry,  there is only one stove and usually only one person has the food.  This means everyone has to work together, spend some time making a good meal.  The way food brings people together camping is a lot like how  it has during this project. I've adopted the habit of cooking for at least a couple people probably 50% of the nights of a typical week.  After all, if you're going to go to all that work, might as well be worth it to more people than yourself. 

3_When the sun goes down, it gets dark

I mean, there aren't any other options.  Headlamps are the original task lighting.  The fire or lamp on a picnic table becomes the gathering place because it is the only place people can see (and its warm).  Its harder to move around when the whole area (or house) isn't lit up.  You walk to the bathroom, you gotta take a candle (or a flashlight).  Areas with the most lighting (like our table with a bunch of candles on it) automatically become the places people go to. 

4_Water is precious

Whether it is because you're waiting for it to rain or just haven't filtered enough water, water scarcity is a real issue in both camping and trying to live within your water 'budget'.  Camping in the frozen meadows below Grand Teton where the water is either frozen or ICE cold is a real test of how badly you need/want it and an excellent exercise in conservation.  Camping taught me how to do dishes in a no-oil world.  Use leftover boiling water from cooking for hot wash water. Pour your rinse water and wash water into two basins (or use the biggest two pots that are dirty).  Do cleanest dishes first. No running water needed.  Why do we abandon these habits when we go back to our homes with running water?

5_Connection with the elements

You havn't truly expereinced snow until you have slept in it.  And on it.  And under it.  I'm not trying to promote this in any way, it was actually kind of miserable, but gave me a totally different perspective of the kind of weather we have here.  We've done a great job at protecting and isolating ourselves from the elements.  After all, that's how we survived.  However, the more isolated we become, the greater the sense of unfamiliarity and even fear comes from being out in the elements.  Winter biking is a good example of this.  There aren't many mornings that I look out the window and get excited to jump on my bike and avoid snow chunks.  Once I am out there riding however, I realize how worked up I got about something that really isn't that bad.

7_You dress for the weather

Dressing comfortably and warmly for biking in freezing temperatures takes priority over looking nice.  These are my sisters on a winter camping trip in northern MN, clearly, the same deal ;)

6_Cannot create any waste

When we go camping we make NO waste, we EAT our toilet paper.  Well, maybe not.  Regardless, it is easy to be aware of how much waste you are creating when you are on a backpacking trip and have to carry it with you the rest of the trip.  Having to collect all the waste I create (even after eliminating as much waste as possible) has been a reality check for me (especially now that I have almost 90 days worth).  We've gotten really good at packing food and avoiding packaging in these situation.  There is also more motivation to avoid dumping stuff when in a pristine wilderness.  However,  it doesn't matter whether you throw that candy bar wrapper down a glacier or in an urban street, its eventually going to end up in the same place.  Paying attention to some of the ways I found to reduce waste on backpacking trips was a good start for me when I started this project: Refill your water bottle, avoid individually wrapped items, and buy in bulk using reusable jars. Pack it in pack it out.  Or in the no oil case-don't make it at all. 

An interesting exercise would be to carry around all the waste you create in a day.  At the end of the day, take an inventory of what was; organics, recyclables and trash.  If you eliminate some of the waste you create, try to find an alternative.  For example, ask if a restaurant can put your take-out in a container that you bring.