It is fall. On the road in southwest Nova Scotia you see local farmers’ signs of apples, potatoes and squash for bulk sale. Canning jars are displayed on the conspicuous spots at stores, often with sugar and vinegar right beside them. Traditionally this is the harvesting and processing time.
In the olden days people stocked up the food to survive until the next crop came out. There was no convenience of grocery stores to pick up a bag of apples or bunch of carrots in the middle of winter. They dried, salted and canned many things to feed the family for months.
Today many households still get busy this time processing and storing the fruits and vegetables in abundance, but for the most cases they are not aiming to cover the all meals through the winter by the preserved foods. Thanks to our modern technology, we now don’t have to stock everything up. The advanced commercial system supplies what we need and want year around.
On the other hand, this mentality of go-buy-as-you-want has been making people blind from some problems.
For example, it takes the precaution for the food security away from consumers. In the reality, the food supply is quite fragile. I experienced the stores becoming almost empty in a few days after a big earthquake in Japan about 20 years ago (therefore not to hard to imagine what happened after Tsunami). My friend in Calgary told me the similar story after the serious flooding they had the summer before. These incidents remind us how quickly things can disappear even in the places we think are highly developed. In fact, the modern global distribution system is not so solid and reliable as you believe. A large part of store products come from far away. Once the traffic route is cut off, the supply is terminated.
Also, by making small but frequent payments, you lose the sense of total spending and saving. Say, you go to a coffee shop and spend $1.50 for a cup of coffee every morning. It costs you over $30 a month and $350 per year, without counting the gas you use to drive there. Spending a dollar or 2 at a time doesn’t seem a lot, yet many people stop and think when it comes to a $30 or $300 expense.
Generally the go-buy-as-you-want mentality comes from the short cycle of life, typically weekly based. To begin with, you get the pay cheque every other week or so. You go grocery every week. Spend and store for a week. No need of a large budget, extra storage space and equipment. No intensive processing and/or storing work. In exchange of such convenience, you pay.
Often people say so-called quality food is expensive. In reply the experts argue it’s not so expensive if you make wise decisions and plan well. Here is a good article talking about it written by a Calgary based consulting company:
http://vergepermaculture.ca/blog/2014/09/30/cheap-beyond-organic-food/
What he says in this article is so right. However, in the reality, many people can’t change their shopping pattern so easily. Knowing and doing are totally two separate things.
I think the secret is to shift your life cycle from weekly to seasonal and longer. When you see the life from annual point of view, you realize there is the season for things. Fall is a typical harvesting season. Summer can be the best time for some fermentation while winter may be great for indoor maintenance and storing certain things. Spring is naturally low with fresh food, so the time to clean up the old stocks. What you need to do is to get into this swing.
It takes a while though to retrain you seeing from only following several weeks to months, year and eventually life time long. I am still learning to have a larger vision, shifting from a typical modern working mother, city-like, 9/5 and weekly based lifestyle. I enjoy this journey. I feel living in the long term cycle makes you more sensitive to many important but overlooked everyday elements, which is already quite rewarding.
If you want to change your shopping habit, start from small such as CSA. Train yourself to accept some out-of-your-control elements such as vegetables in season coming to you whether you like or not. Shifting to a nature based cycle means accepting something you can’t control. You accept then live along with it. It’s swinging, so go with it instead of fighting with it.
In this manner, south west Nova Scotia is a wonderful place to learn the long term life cycle. People’s life is traditionally relying on the nature. People are amazingly sensitive with the influence of the tide on wind and temperature change.
Some people are bitter about the inconvenience here, but we have such a valuable environment to feel and learn the nature’s cycle of life. You don’t get helpless with something out of your control. Instead, you become more creative and flexible. Get into the swing. Dance with the nature. This is a quite enjoyable, thrilling and fascinating paradigm shift.