Eat Local Challenge Week

Eating locally produced foods became green trend now.  My wife is excited to cook and eat local foods for 1 week that involves me and my son and her mother too.  Personally, I don't mind eating 100% locally as long as food is good.

so why should we eat locally produced foods anyway? beside to avoid cooporate industrial food culture, large scale chemical farming and global distribution and long distance trucking being great concern to us.

1. fresh and has better nutrients because the harvest is at the optimal stage.
2. less transportation, less fuel used
3. farmer's market and food stand require less packaging.
4. require less or no chemicals (fungicide etc) and irradiation to preserve for long distance shipping and even required by law sometimes.
5. garden can store food in the landscape.  fresh herbs, perennial vegetables.
6. wild harvest (fish, mountain vegetables, game animals) are typically not available at stores
7. locally produced foods are better adapted for our food culture and environment we live in.
8. taste better
9. we know where the foods come from or at least easier to find the producer

My biggest problem is eating rice.  Since I grew up in Japan and eating rice has been a big part of my food culture so I don't know how long I can last without obsessive craving.

I grew mochi rice last year, but seasonality is not distinct to produce full yield.  If I only want to get rice as a  backup option, this will suffice, but it doesn't change the core problem of why we should be eating local food.  We have lots of taro to eat from our garden.  perhaps 100lb still stored in the ground.

Taro harvest - Eat local challenge

Eat Local Challenge start this Sunday.  It was a good timing so we decide to harvest 2 rows of taro, perhaps 20lb or so.  There are some big ones and small ones.  They are all good cooked together in pressure cooker with peel on.  Once they are cooked, they peel real easy.  We harvest taro once or twice a month so not so much different from our ordinary routine of harvesting.  Taro doesn't store very well, but they store well in the landscape.
Natural farming crops are supposed to store well in ordinary storage condition so maybe i'm not doing something right.  Taro also contains much water, so likely to rot, but cold storage may improve.  Typically my grandmother was storing her taro in cool, but not freezing condition to keep it alive and keep it from sprouting until spring.  If I can get enough refrigerator space, it may store well.

Photos show our harvest of taro.  Not too bad for using no fertilizer at all.  Natural farming taro (or any other vegetables) are extremely efficient.  This is one thing I notice throughout in natural farming crops.  because they are not provided with luxurious load of fertilizers and amendment, they adapt their natural nutrient cycle and local environment.  and the resulting plant proportion is small and symmetrical leaf shap, yet large corm in proportion.  sometimes even surprises me with such small leaves with decent size corm. 

Another way of looking at this is that taro carry no excess weight from overeating.  One thing I noticed was that the taro had weak root system.  Not very thick, I should say, not too thick since there was reasonable amount of root holding up the plant and perhaps enough to get the plants' nutrient functions going.  Perhaps it's part of natural farming plant efficiency to use least amount of energy to produce the most.

In the end, taro doesn't need large leaves or too many leaves.  If their leaves are small, they can be planted denser together and still have good per unit area yield.  Perhaps I need a comparison study to test standard yield.  I planted about 1-2 ft apart, but felt it was too far apart and letting too much light through.

She is supposed to be our tea farm intern, but harvesting and separating taro and huli for next planting.  Taro is pretty simple to manage.  I don't think we do anything more than plant, weed and harvest.

Why is it challenge to eat local? what's the core problem?

Thinking about Eat Local week, I came across some things that caught my attention that eating local seems like it's much more than just foods coming from local source.

In many ways, we think it's hard to eat local.  Typically it's more expensive to buy local foods, they are not available at stores and it takes more energy to prepare meals from local ingredients.  Of course, it's easier to pop frozen pizza in the oven, or go eat out.

OK, so if we live in a rural farming community like Hamakua coast on the Big island, where we are, it's still hard to get everything local because we have to plan ahead.  It's not very flexible.  Yes, once a week to farmer's market trip requires more planning than going to grocery store when we feel like it or when you can find time between work and kids demanding your presence.

Yet, my greatest concern is that our imported food culture has forced the environment to adapt us instead of humans adapting the environment.  Like Hawaii already had a local food culture completely self-sufficient until new comers brought their food culture and changed the local foodscape, which in turn we have to import all the ingredients on the recipe to make thanksgiving dinner and fast food hamburger lunch.

Yes, I brought rice culture and I know giving up rice is not easy when growing up with it for my whole life, but how much commitment should it take to live on the new land or is it just a resort?

For example, to make thanksgiving dinner in Hawaii we don't grow those irish potatoes for mushed potatoes but taro and sweet potatoes and most people don't eat much turkey, but pigs.  and we don't grow wheat to make pie crust and cranberries for sauce.

Adaptation can be good so instead of making mushed potatoes, we can make poi (mushed taro) or even my favorite mushed ulu (or bread fruits).  and make kalua pork (shredded pork) instead of turkey for thanksgiving dinner.  and what do we use for pie crust?  and is thanksgiving really a part of Hawaiian culture?

I know some Japanese immigrant neighbors who have been living here for a few generations brought their original culture, adapted and replace with local ingredients.  Hapuu fern is a local tree fern that Hawaiians didn't eat, but Japanese immigrants found a way to make it palatable by boiling it for a long time and removing the bitter clingy taste. It's texture is almost like a pickled bamboo, it's crunchy and not much flavor.  so they added a little flavoring to make it savory.  I can understand why it appealed to Japanese immigrant, but not Hawaiians.

Other adaptation was bringing and growing some edible plant source.  Avocados and bananas grow like weeds and produce much foods.  Chayote is a squash that just takes over and give us many squash looking vegetable that can be pickled or cooked.  also some beans are pretty wild and wildest guava makes good jam, but why are they not being sold at stores?  Too much work and too little money to be made, perhaps. Even people don't harvest macadamia nuts because they don't earn much money anymore.

Anyway, we tend to look at large scale farms and gardens to produce typical kinds of vegetables, but we need to look at a bit further to find what local foods really mean.  It's not just what we can grow locally with imported fertilizers and amendments and machinery and even labor...., then it's just a new type of branding.  I noticed that some manufacturers claim because they make their products here with all the imported ingredients, suddenly it becomes local.  It's a very gray area indeed.  Is it local or is it not?

A village without war and peace from One-straw revolution

Next week, September 21st, Tuesday is the International Day of Peace (peace day) so here's another peace topic.

Why is it so hard to keep peace in this world?  If making peace or keeping peace is so easy, there wouldn't be major conflicts and wars being repeated in human history.  Then, is it natural for humans to make war?

Perhaps what is perceived as natural to most humans is far deviated from the rest of the natural world so that what is natural to us is no longer true naturalness.

Peace is a relative state that is dependent on the state of war, thus the best way of making peace seems to be getting rid of the notion of peace, that is, getting rid of the duality and relativity of peace and war.

If we look at the world as competition or cooperation, we are still looking at the world through relativity.  There will always be high and low, strong and week, winners and losers.

The following is an excerpt from "A Village Without War and Peace," a small chapter from "The one straw revolution" by Masanobu Fukuoka.

"The world itself never asks whether it is based upon a principle of competition or of cooperation. When seen from the relative perspective of the human intellect, there are those who are strong and there are those who are weak, there is large and there is small.
Now there is no one who doubts that this relative outlook exists, but if we were to suppose that the relativity of human perception is mistaken - for example, that there is no big and no small, no up or down - if we say there is no such standpoint at all, human values and judgment would collapse.
“Isn’t that way of seeing the world an empty flight of the imagination? In reality, there are large countries and small countries. If there is poverty and plenty, strong and weak, inevitably there will be disputes, and consequently, winners and losers. Couldn’t you say, rather, that these relative perceptions and the resulting emotions are human and therefore natural, that they are a unique privilege of being human?”
Other animals fight but do not make war. If you say that making war, which depends upon ideas of strong and weak, is humanity’s special “privilege,” then life is a farce. Not knowing this farce to be a farce there lies the human tragedy. "


"The ones who live peacefully in a world of no contradictions and no distinctions are infants. They perceive light and dark, strong and weak, but make no judgments. Even though the snake and the frog exist, the child has no understanding of strong and weak. The original joy of life is there, but the fear of death is yet to appear. The love and hate which arise in the adult’s eyes originally were not two separate things. They are the same thing as seen from the front and from the back. Love gives substance to hate. If you turn the coin of love
over, it becomes hate. Only by penetrating to an absolute world of no aspects, is it possible to avoid becoming lost in the duality of the phenomenal world.
People distinguish between Self and Other. To the extent that the ego exists, to the extent that there is an “other,” people will not be relieved from love and hatred. The heart that loves the wicked ego creates the hated enemy. For humans, the first and greatest enemy is the Self that they hold so dear.
People choose to attack or to defend. In the ensuing struggle they accuse one another of instigating conflict. It is like clapping your hands and then arguing about which is making the sound, the right hand or the
left. In all contentions there is neither right nor wrong, neither good nor bad. All conscious distinctions arise at the same time and all are mistaken."

Because we favor love, hatred is generated.  Favoring one thing will inevitably create the opposite.  How can we not see it this way?  Are we too arrogant and mature to learn from infants?  Because we are supposed to be teaching them?  and we know better about the world?

It seems that who know how to run the world is only making the world less pleasant place to live.  If we know what we are doing, why is the earth is only getting worse?

In Lao Tzu's "Tao Te Ching" (translated by Brian Browne Walker, 1995) relative existence of things also appear in chapter 2,

"When people find one thing beautiful, another consequently becomes ugly.
When one man is held up as good, another is judged deficient.


Similarly, being and nonbeing balance each other:
difficult and easy define each other;
high and low rest upon one another;
voice and song meld into harmony;
what is to come follows upon what has been.


The wise person acts without effort and teaches by quiet example.
He accepts things as they come, 
creates without possessing,
noruishes without demanding,
accomplishes without taking credits.


Because he constantly forgets himself,
he is never forgotten."

Inner peace through tea

Tea and peace are always connected together.  Tea is a drink to calm and excite.  Peace is ...what is peace?  Peace gives great productivity and creativity to our mind.  Peaceful time throughout history in many nations, people and culture proliferated.  Peace gives people a creative outlet because there is less to worry about danger and possible control by instability of social conditions.

Tea is popularized by the practice of zen buddhism and mindfulness.  Drinking tea was not only for its health benefit, but also to practice being mindful and to live the moment.

Zen Master Zhaozhou of Tung dinasty and "Chichaqu" are speaking:

Master Zhaozhou to inquires with Monk 1:  Have you been here before?
Monk 1: No, I haven't
Master:  Have some tea
Master Z to Monk 2:  Have you been here before?
Monk 2:  Yes, I have
Master: Have some tea.
Temple manager: Master, for one who has been here and for one who has not, you give the same answer, to drink tea.  What is the reason?
Master to Temple manager: Have some tea!

Drinking tea is an act of being present.  Rich, poor, young, old, man, woman, all these differences are out of context.  We change our attitude toward who we are dealing with.  In tea service, all our social and economical differences are disregarded and we treat everybody at the table fairly and equally.

Fishing with 2 year old

We got much of the summer field maintenance done in the tea fields, thanks to all the helpers. so I took my son along and went fishing.  He is 2 and 1/2 years old.  He is obviously too young to fish by himself so he just stand by my side and watch.  At least he knows how fishing is done.  I'm talking about shore fishing.  Set up gear, cast and reel.  Pretty simple.  He can't cast, so I cast, then he reels in, bit awkward, but since he's my son, he got a natural touch of fisherman.  He thinks casting and reeling is fishing because we haven't caught any.

In Hawaii, Papio is a popular game fish.  It's a small Ulua, once it reaches 10lb it's called Ulua.  I spent much of youth fishing in Japan and my college years flyfishing in Sierra Nevada mountains and all over Northern California, catching many little ones and big ones so I know a bit about fishing, but just doing lure fishing with a little kid isn't as easy as one would think.  Perhaps I will use a bait next time.