Is localvorism anti-feminist?

I promise this will be my last post before the essay I promised. But this is something I really want to address, both because I’ve seen this several times now and because our sermon at church yesterday was on localvorism and someone raised this question. The basic premise is that being a localvore may be anti-feminist because it tends to require more work to get and prepare food and thus more time in the kitchen. This is, of course, what women have long sought to escape. You can read a blog post on this subject here: http://www.lilith.org/blog/?p=23

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that not only is eating locally NOT anti-feminist, it is probably the most feminist diet one can eat, and maybe the most feminist thing one can do. I’ll get into the reasons for this as I go through the essay, but first I’m going to take the points in the above post and refute them one by one.

First, as regards winter fruits and vegetables: you don’t eat the same ones as you do in summer. You don’t buy strawberries in December. You buy apples instead. In the place of summer squash you buy winter squash. Secondly, if you want to eat strawberries in December you buy them in May or June –whenever your local season is –and can, freeze or dry them for use in the winter months. This is how our ancestors ate for thousands of years, all the way up to the 1950s when widespread refrigeration and cheap oil made it possible to buy California strawberries in Wisconsin in January.

Second, it doesn’t cost that much more to eat locally, especially if you grow your own or go to u-pick farms. In fact, it can be cheaper. I can pick blueberries here for about a dollar a pint, versus buying them for 2.5 to 3 times that, even now when they’re in season. I have nine pints of frozen blueberries in my freezer that should last me nearly a year.

Next Lilith wants to know if we “can actually cut convenience out of their diets entirely without sacrificing the freedoms that come with not being chained to the stove all day?” There are two points to make about this –the first is that no one says you have to give up all conveniences –I still use my fridge, freezer, and microwave, for instance. The second, and more important, is what freedoms are you giving up? She says she could never work, full-time, get married, or have kids if she would do this all the time. Okay, that’s patent nonsense –there are a lot of married, working moms who are also committed localvores.

Again, I have to ask what freedoms you’re giving up and also what the trade-offs are. Everything has trade-offs; there’s no perfect solution here. To eat locally you do have to spend more time acquiring and preparing food. There’s no way around that. Are the freedoms you’re giving up the right to watch TV for an hour a day? The ability to take your kids to three or four activities a week? That may be okay for you or not. But suppose you don’t eat locally. What are you giving up then?

That question may seem counter-intuitive to some. After all, don’t you get anything? Can’t you eat anything and get it from anywhere? You can eat dinner out every night and have fruit out of season, sure. But it’s going to cost you. The first thing it will cost you is money. As I pointed out previously, it often costs less money to eat locally than not. The second thing it is going to cost you is time. You have to earn that money, after all. And the more money you need, the more you have to work. Maybe you love your job and if so, that’s great. But most jobs in this country frankly suck. The feminist movement liberated us from the kitchen; the corporations made sure we had no choice but to become their serfs. Some success. Where’s the freedom in that? The third thing you’re going to give up is health. Convenience foods are not nearly as healthy as whole, unprocessed food. They are the biggest source of bad health in this country.

But let’s get back to the previous point. Freedom. What is freedom? The right to make your own choices. The right to do what you want and not be dependent on others for your choices. If you depend on the corporate system for food, you are in effect depending on them for everything. Why? Think about it for a moment. Food is basic. Food is the most necessary thing for someone to have. If you don’t have food, you will starve to death. Period. If you have to depend on someone else for food, then you are at their mercy. If you can’t meet their price or they can’t deliver the food, tough. So sorry. A lot of people claim they are not beholden to the corporate system, that they have escaped it. But guess where they still get their food?

Food and food security are not just basic to freedom; they ARE freedom. Throughout history, the first thing a conquering army did to help vanquish the civilians was destroy their food supply. From the Romans, to the English settlers in America, the militias would burn the granaries or the fields to starve the populace into submission. How can you rebel or shrug off a system when you are dependent on it? The answer is that you can’t. So, not eating locally not only does not give you more freedom, it gives you much less. When you are in charge of your own food supply, when you eat locally, when you grow your own, then you cut the most vital link between you and the system that is destroying both you and the country. Which gives you more freedom? And which, therefore, is more feminist?