In my post, ‘Competing Priorities’ from a couple of days ago, I discussed buying organic vs local vs no packaging.

Since then I decided that even though I do buy some imported ingredients, I try to offset that by producing some of our own food and buying local food where possible.  Stephanie’s comment re the priority of the ‘100 Mile Diet’ reminded to look at the origin of what we eat.

Today’s lunch measured up pretty well on all counts I think.  I had lasagne (leftovers from the freezer) and a few bits of salad.  Here is the analysis:

Cherry tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber and green bell chilli – all from our garden. – No packaging

Lasagne – made using fresh lasagne sheets, bechamel sauce, cheese and meat sauce.  To extract this further:

Lasagne sheets – eggs produced by our chickens and flour (Australian) – bought from bulk bins from local independent supplier.
Cheese – bought from the Kenilworth cheese factory (about 40km from home).
Minced beef – grass-fed from about 400km away and bought at local independent butcher.
TVP (textured vegetable protein) – bought from bulk bins from local independent supplier (unsure of country of origin)
Pasta sauce – made and bottled at home using local tomatoes and capsicums plus home-grown onions.

The meal also used powdered milk, tomato paste (bought at local Aldi supermarket), red wine (Australian – purchased at the winery when travelling), pepper, spices (bought from bulk bins from local independent supplier).  I use butter blend that I make myself using pure butter (comes in a paper wrapper which is re-used to line cake tins and then composted) and olive oil (local from about 30km away) bought in bulk from the local co-op.

I take my own re-used paper bags for everything I buy from the bulk bins.  I take containers for the meat that I buy from the butcher and mesh bags for any fruit and vegetables that I buy.  The 2.5kg block of cheese was encased in plastic and the packet that the packet from the powdered milk are the only non-recyclable waste generated from the ingredients used to prepare this meal.

Not every meal I prepare measures up quite as well in terms of local content but I plan to try to incorporate something we have produced ourselves in every lunch and dinner.

Do you ever consider waste and local content in terms of a whole meal?