Nadia Lim is the real price of food in our trolleys

Comment: I wonder how much we know the “true value” of the food we put in our shopping trolleys? When most of us are not involved in the growth, processing, or distribution of our food, it is almost impossible to fully understand what is included from seed to dish and what the results are.

The fact is, most people are not happy about how their purchasing decisions determine the cost of the environment and human health, how food grows, works and is distributed.

As we grow older, we grow more food (650 tons of grain and seeds, 1,800 sheep, and hundreds of chickens, 8 hectares of organic market, 100 kg of honey), but we are still on a learning curve. There are many hidden or “spirits” costs to produce a small amount of plant or animal-based food.

Many people are aware of the methane greenhouse gases produced by animal husbandry, but we have not yet had strong discussions about other hidden environmental costs – vegetable and crop production – yet. Most man-made fertilizers, fossil fuels, chemicals and soil carbon emissions have no knowledge of conventional vegetable crops and crops (eg, wheat, barley, potatoes, carrots, etc.).

Read more:
* Nadia Lim – Jack Frost Key for Sweet Sprouts
* Nadia Lim: We need to bridge the urban-rural divide
* Nadia Lim – How to make the most of your spring garden now

If we do not understand the real hidden costs of producing food, we will not be able to appreciate or understand the value of food produced in better, more sustainable systems. We see this many times. For example, we do not earn more dollars to free our crops and seeds by re-cultivating and spraying our crops, rather than by drying out our crops. We do not want to contribute to the chemicals in the food system, so we only choose to spray and dry our crops.

In fact, when you look beyond the packaging, an amazing amount of food is overcooked, damaged by diet and produced in high-end monoculture systems based on high inputs not to mention miles of food. Take, for example, soy milk. If we follow that path, there is a greater chance that genetically modified offspring will grow in the United States.

The inputs – artificial fertilizers, chemical sprays, fossil fuels – are needed to cultivate and collect soybeans in a mass monopoly system. Soybeans are then exported to a different state or country, where they are processed in a factory by adding additional foreign inputs (such as mineral fertilizer) before being sent to us around the world.

Then there is the elimination of soil carbon, health and biodiversity – issues that concern me the most, but which are not widely known or talked about by the general public. Harmful to heavy animal husbandry is well-known and widely discussed in New Zealand, but can imported soy milk be “out of sight, out of mind” and “unless it is in my backyard”?

If you are lucky you can get organic capacity? There is a cost. If you can only produce about one-fifth of the normal system (for example, a crop of wheat), you have to use the land five times to produce the same amount of flour if you want to feed the world.

I do not support dairy products on organic, or soy. My point is to grow all the food, and I mean every type of food, on a large scale, often comes at a supermarket exit at an unexpected or unrealistic price.

I don’t have all the answers, unfortunately. However, I believe that in general, we need to learn about the journey behind the many things on our plate, get more involved in raising or growing some of our own food, and really value the food that grows in agricultural systems. It relates to our attitudes and beliefs.

The effects of our food choices should also be considered in the “big picture,” and should not be easily overlooked by market claims and media or documentary bites. All you see or hear is just a small piece of the puzzle.