Can Vegetarianism Go Local? (Part II)
OCTOBER 1, 2007 - (Click here for Part I) A fully vegetarian and local diet is certainly possible on many landscapes worldwide. History is full of examples of local vegetarian communities, including in our home province of British Columbia. Grains and legumes grow well here, we've spoken to people who've produced wholly local tofu, and we're aware of several varieties of local nuts, along with all the wealth of other vegetable foods. Alisa and I are growing more beans for drying, and are hoping to see more of them at local farmers' markets - alongside the current favas - as demand for more varied local food increases. As gardeners and farmers reinvent (and remember) what is possible on North American landscapes, a plant-based diet will be possible in many places.
In some places, though, it won't. What repercussions does that fact have for vegetarianism as a universal philosophy? That question, of course, has been with us for a long time. The Inuit of the far north, for example, could not likely exist within their chosen ecology without animal foods and products. If eating within the ecological limits of a place requires the consumption of animal foods, what does that mean to the vegetarian philosophy? These are points that I continue to think about and to take seriously.
Meanwhile, vegetarianism's claim to be the most environmentally sustainable way to eat - in terms of water consumption, use of land, energy consumption, etc - continues to grow more nuanced. An important study by food systems researcher Annika Carlsson-Kanyama, "Climate change and dietary choices - how can emissions of greenhouse gases from food consumption be reduced?", which appeared in Food Policy in 1998, looked at full life-cycle analyses for various types of diet in terms of the greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of protein, beta carotene, and calories. The least greenhouse-gas intensive diet proved to be "domestic [local] vegetarian." But it's important to note that a local non-vegetarian diet proved to be more environmentally sustainable than an "exotic" vegetarian diet with foods travelling long distances and frequently being eaten out of season.
Even this analysis, Alisa and I think, is only a beginning. It is true that it can take a huge number of pounds of perfectly good plant food to create a single pound of beef. At the same time, it is true that animals can often be grazed responsibly on, for example, drylands where plant foods could only be produced with an enormous amount of irrigation and fertilization. Ecology is complicated, and can only truly be considered case by case with an eye on the big picture. Or, put another way, it can only really be considered locally, with an eye to Planet Earth.-JBM
