Mini garden at home?
Hello!
Today, I want to talk about a shocking situation we're living in this globalized world: consumerism (in the food industry), which has many controversials perspectives due to its relation with climate change and food security.
The Food Empowerment Project (2018) mentions that a "wide range of negative social repercussions are related to fast food consumption, like for instance the rapidly rising rates of diet-related disease, worker exploitation, systemic animal abuse, and environmental degradation", since its value chain is focused on massive production, with a main target market... lower- income consumers.
In the other hand, the individual and sociocultural factors together with advertising practices influence consumers’ fast‐food addiction and consumerism, that's why, governments and companies are called to mainly take control and manage through CSR the relationship between fast‐food addiction and consumers behaviour, by implementing public policies to promote healthier production and consumption habits in the population. (Farah., Faisal., 2020).
Furthermore, fast food consumption is a social equality issue, as a US nationwide study found that black and brown communities and low-income areas normally consume a higher % of junk food due to the low presence and disponibility of supermarkets near their neighbourhoods. Therefore, “Many of the communities that lack healthy food retailers are also oversaturated with fast-food restaurants, liquor stores, and other sources of inexpensive, processed food with little to no nutritional value” (Food Empowerment Project, 2018).
Being this a problem that depends largely on our individual decisions when deciding what to consume BUT at the same time on the conditions and life opportunities we have, I decided to share my experience:
When the pandemic began, my grandmother was living in my apartment,and due to the impossibility of returning to the city where she normally lives, she began to create a mini home garden as a way to face the situation of the pandemic. Basically, on our little terrace, she planted peppermint and spring onion, reusing plastic containers and making a homemade fertilizer*. After a few months, we were able to enjoy a delicious peppermint tea for many days and use the spring onion in our daily preparations, thus representing an alternative to consume fresh food, not ultra-processed and respecting the natural cycles of obtaining food.
So, if within your means you can carry out this action or a similar one, try it!
It's an inexpensive alternative that only requires a little ingenuity and a little patience to enjoy healthy food, while contributing your grain of sand to avoid continuing to consume junk food in excess. And, in the long term, fresh and healthy food will have a better cost benefit for our well-being.
Homemade fertilizer*: Use the organic waste from your kitchen, such as fruit and vegetables peels, chop them very small or blend them and add them as fertilizer to the crops so they absorb all the nutrients.
References:
Farah, M., Faisal, M. (2020). Fast‐food addiction and anti‐consumption behaviour: The moderating role of consumer social responsibility. Retrieved from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ijcs.12574
Food Empowerment Project. (2018). FAST FOOD. Retrieved from:https://foodispower.org/access-health/fast-food/
Thanks,
Sharon.
Yes Sharon!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you, and enjoyed your blog a lot. The fast food industry is not the issue, but the massive and unhealthy patterns of people. And this could be really aggressive not only for their health, but also for the environment. We should be more aware of this, because it greatly affects our society. As you mentioned as well, the problem is also that there is a lot of communities that don't have the income to eat in a sustainable way, that is why they take this time of approaches. Also, there could be situations in which someone does not have the time to prepare their meals because of work and they just opt for these alternatives. But I really like that you are giving a solution right here, and is cultivating our own food.
Growing your own food has a lot of benefits, it helps you eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, also you decide what kinds of fertilizers and pesticides come in contact with your food, it lets you control when to harvest your food and vegetables that ripen in the garden have more nutrients than some store-bought vegetables that must be picked early. And, the most amazing benefit of all: it will lessen your carbon footprint!
I read a news article that said more than 50% of U.S residential backyards are wasted and not cultivated. But instead, people spend enormous amounts of water in maintaining the yard pretty. Which is not ok at all! If you have a space as such at your home, you should use it for the benefit of planet earth, and your health. I read that by having a backyard garden you could save around 2 pounds of carbon from entering the atmosphere for each pound of produce that you grow. Because you know, food is being shipped across the planet. Hunger can be avoided if more people did small scale farming and were less dependent on huge farms. People can work for themselves instead of working long hours for minimum wages and buying the food back as consumers.
Thanks a lot for this blog, it also showed that you did a fair amount of research and its reliable. Love it.
Wow Jorge, thanks for your detailed reply! :)
DeleteI'm glad you see the relation between our daily actions and how we can make a change in our community to address this kind of global issues. Also, I really appreciate that you mention that people are more interested on preserving their graden at a good-looking state, but they don't take advantage of those spaces to start growing their own food, as we have mentioned, not everybody have this opportunity and those who have it, in most cases, dont't maxime it!
Hello Sharon,
ReplyDeletethe topic you talked about caught my attention because I find the reason why many people prefer to consume fast foods instead of healthy products and this is precisely due to the price they handle. The large fast food industries produce in abundance to reduce prices and in part this is also due to us that we only demand and demand more of them. The option that you plant of the home garden seems to me a fabulous idea and I share your experience, since last semester in a class called ecology, we had as a project to build a home garden and from that moment in my house we consume everything that the garden produces , there we have onions, coriander, carrots, among many more, that apart from helping the conscientious consumption, is a beautiful family project, which motivates you to see every day how much the things you planted have grown.
Hi Ana,
DeleteI am glad to know that you have also put into practice the teachings of the subject (ecology), because it reflects the importance that we as young generations are giving to environmental care and how we can impact from our homes. I'm also happy to know that you are already consuming what you harvested, great job! :)