dragonlady7 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dragonlady7) wrote2019-09-27 02:57 pm
dragonlady7) wrote2019-09-27 02:57 pm
Entry tags:
or not putting things by
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Having written out that whole thing, I’m also like, maybe I should have mentioned that “it’s so easy just do it” doesn’t necessarily apply to everybody. I know that. I still do throw out a lot of stuff. It helps to have a compost pile, it makes me feel like it’s less of a waste at least– it’s going back to the earth pretty directly that way. But I’m still not always being efficient and pro-active and all that.
On the farm, we donate a lot of shit to the food pantry because we also do not have time for that shit sometimes. We are so lucky, with our local food pantry– Capital Roots– they have a fantastic program where they get local volunteers to pick up donations from farms, and the like; they’ll even do rescue harvests, where a farmer can’t sell a crop– they’ll send a (n often quite skilled) volunteer crew to get the thing out of the field where it would otherwise rot, and bring it to where hungry people can get it. So for us, if it’s gross, it’s fed to pigs, if it’s not gross, it’s donated, if it’s not gross AND I’m there, it gets frozen or canned so we can eat it later. (Though, they did tomatoes without me this year, which is why I had to do my own batch at home to freeze, lol.)
Anyhow– at the farm, my BIL applied for a grant to get a commercial kitchen through some programs, and he’s got all kinds of business plans for it, but one of my secret little personal dreams is to be able to offer a CSA subscription that’s just all put-by stuff. Stuff that’s already been put by, I mean. By me, in the commercial kitchen so it’s legal to sell.
Think about it– regardless of season, so whenever, you could pick up a box that’s already-canned tomatoes, already-frozen carrots, already-frozen spinach, already-canned broth, all the stuff you never have time to use and have to throw out wilted– but minimally-processed into a stable form so you can just cook with it. I want to take the discarded chicken feet and process them into bone broth and can it so that’s accessible to people who can’t make it themselves. Then it’s accessible for people without big kitchens, people with disabilities, people with really limited schedules and new babies and such.
I’d have to charge more than for a regular fresh share, but maybe we could even manage some of the sliding-scale stuff we do with the regular CSA. (We have a program where people who can afford it sign up to pay extra for their shares, so people who need the food but can’t afford it can get subsidized shares. It’s harder for us to find people who’ll take the help than people who’ll pay extra, which says things about our community, I think! and we need to do more outreach to find people who need help, too, but there’s that bit of data!)
Anyway. I don’t mean to shame people who can’t even manage to freeze the rest of their bunch of carrots. I can’t tell you how many I’ve let go way too long and thrown out. This year, even. Last month. I’m not a superhero.
I just wanted to point out: it’s something you can do on a single-person scale in low-effort ways.
Most of these things I’ve been writing lately, they’re just attempts to be positive and feel like you have choices in this stuff, like you can try to take control of your foodshed, like you can try and make positive inroads yourself. Real change has to come from above, I know, in systemic ways, with legal backup. But the more you’ve taken as much charge as you can, the more informed you are about how the system has to change. And the more hope and energy you can bring to it, instead of hopelessness.
That’s all.
Having written out that whole thing, I’m also like, maybe I should have mentioned that “it’s so easy just do it” doesn’t necessarily apply to everybody. I know that. I still do throw out a lot of stuff. It helps to have a compost pile, it makes me feel like it’s less of a waste at least– it’s going back to the earth pretty directly that way. But I’m still not always being efficient and pro-active and all that.
On the farm, we donate a lot of shit to the food pantry because we also do not have time for that shit sometimes. We are so lucky, with our local food pantry– Capital Roots– they have a fantastic program where they get local volunteers to pick up donations from farms, and the like; they’ll even do rescue harvests, where a farmer can’t sell a crop– they’ll send a (n often quite skilled) volunteer crew to get the thing out of the field where it would otherwise rot, and bring it to where hungry people can get it. So for us, if it’s gross, it’s fed to pigs, if it’s not gross, it’s donated, if it’s not gross AND I’m there, it gets frozen or canned so we can eat it later. (Though, they did tomatoes without me this year, which is why I had to do my own batch at home to freeze, lol.)
Anyhow– at the farm, my BIL applied for a grant to get a commercial kitchen through some programs, and he’s got all kinds of business plans for it, but one of my secret little personal dreams is to be able to offer a CSA subscription that’s just all put-by stuff. Stuff that’s already been put by, I mean. By me, in the commercial kitchen so it’s legal to sell.
Think about it– regardless of season, so whenever, you could pick up a box that’s already-canned tomatoes, already-frozen carrots, already-frozen spinach, already-canned broth, all the stuff you never have time to use and have to throw out wilted– but minimally-processed into a stable form so you can just cook with it. I want to take the discarded chicken feet and process them into bone broth and can it so that’s accessible to people who can’t make it themselves. Then it’s accessible for people without big kitchens, people with disabilities, people with really limited schedules and new babies and such.
I’d have to charge more than for a regular fresh share, but maybe we could even manage some of the sliding-scale stuff we do with the regular CSA. (We have a program where people who can afford it sign up to pay extra for their shares, so people who need the food but can’t afford it can get subsidized shares. It’s harder for us to find people who’ll take the help than people who’ll pay extra, which says things about our community, I think! and we need to do more outreach to find people who need help, too, but there’s that bit of data!)
Anyway. I don’t mean to shame people who can’t even manage to freeze the rest of their bunch of carrots. I can’t tell you how many I’ve let go way too long and thrown out. This year, even. Last month. I’m not a superhero.
I just wanted to point out: it’s something you can do on a single-person scale in low-effort ways.
Most of these things I’ve been writing lately, they’re just attempts to be positive and feel like you have choices in this stuff, like you can try to take control of your foodshed, like you can try and make positive inroads yourself. Real change has to come from above, I know, in systemic ways, with legal backup. But the more you’ve taken as much charge as you can, the more informed you are about how the system has to change. And the more hope and energy you can bring to it, instead of hopelessness.
That’s all.