Bacteriapalooza, 2008

(Here we go again)

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"Are tomatoes safe to eat yet? Which tomatoes can we eat?”

These are not unreasonable questions about our newest food dilemma, referring to the blasted salmonella on the blasted tomatoes, but they aren't even close to answering the questions about the giant, freaking mess of a pickle we're in. Same with the e. coli spinach scare from last year. The question shouldn’t be when or which; it should be why.

And not an ordinary why, but a probing, brass-tacks, root-of-the-issue why.

Our food system is broken. That’s why our tomatoes and spinach are poisoned. These poisonings are the canary in the coal mine. Industrial agriculture is, plain and simple, not the way we should be growing vegetables. It’s a waste of fuel, a waste of water; it’s destroying our soil and draining our aquifers dry. It’s also destroyed the nutrient value of our food and it's, at least in part, the reason for our obesity epidemic.

True fact: vegetables are 90% water. Water is heavy. Heavy stuff is expensive to move. We’re spending $5.00+ on diesel for tractor-trailers to send little chlorophyll-ed bags of water 2500 miles across the US so folks can have tasteless, mealy tomatoes or bland strawberries or whatever, year ‘round. But there’s more: these sad vegetables are mainly grown in California, with Colorado River water. Most of California is naturally a semi-arid desert, not a green, rich, food-growing oasis. Growing industrial quantities of vegetables in California is only made possible by stealing vast, and I do mean VAST, amounts of water from the Colorado River system. The Colorado River is an ecosystem that is currently on its last legs. By the time the Colorado reaches its delta, there isn’t any water left- one of the great river systems of the world is being destroyed mainly for the sake of our broken food industry. Never mind that millions upon millions of humans shouldn’t be living in the desert in the first place.

Ok, so here’s the rundown-- We’re essentially transporting little bags of endangered river water from a region of the country that cannot afford to give up water, with fuel we can't pay for anymore. Like the great Wendell Berry said, though I’m paraphrasing here- we took a system that wasn’t broken, and broke it.

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You know what I'm going to say, because I am nothing if not a one-note song on a broken record. Home gardening really is a major part of the solution, unless you're a federal lobbyist for the California Department of Agriculture- then the solution might be as Byzantine and absurd as pipelining Great Lakes water all the way to California.

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Now, of course, home gardening can't take the place of all crops, especially grains. But think of all those little water bags in your grocery store- tomatoes, lettuces, leafy greens, peas, beans, potatoes, onions, sweet corn, cabbages, herbs- which can be grown on a surprisingly small plot of yard. Tear up some of that useless grass and build a pretty, formal French-style potager in the front yard, and at least a few of your neighbors will want one, too. Or dig up the back yard and lay in three seasons' worth of vegetables, line the fence with scarlet runner beans, gourds and winter squash, and watch your backyard become a playground for songbirds, hummingbirds, and bees (yes, it's true- and the occasional squirrel and rabbit pest, as well). Set up a beehive in the corner of the yard to pollinate your own crops and you can harvest your own honey- another very heavy product to transport-- and, bonus-- it’s been recently discovered that keeping home hives of bees just might help with our ongoing global bee crisis. Keep a few chickens and let their poop enrich the soil- they work wonders in the pest control department, will gladly eat all of your kitchen and garden scraps, and home-grown eggs are every bit as fabulous as home-grown tomatoes. And with all of this, you get a fair bit of exercise, you turn off the TV, and you can have a conversation with the family or your neighbors. And you get the eat the best food that money can't buy.

The answer is laid out, right before us.