I had to get up early yesterday morning for class, so I ended up listening to some pre-8am NPR on my return to consciousness and discovered Living On Earth. Sure sounds like crunchy-granola hippy-liberal NPR radio to me. (Not that I necessarily mind, per se.) But I guess I often find the commentary to be just soooo depressing, and occasionally it gets this holier than thou tone that can certainly get old... but this particular show, at least on this particular morning, I just found to be interesting listening -- cool stories that just happen to have something to do with people interacting directly with the the earth. (That's little earth, not big, capital-E save the world Earth. Again, not that I mind. Interesting that I'm so self-conscious about it though. Somehow, giving a shit about the environment has suddenly become a BAD THING(tm). But I digress.)
First up, a story about eating food grown locally. (well, not actually up -- I was half-asleep. I dreamt of apple trees and cider as the commentary seeped into my brain.)
"Home Grown"
McKIBBEN: ...I don't think I'm ever going back to eating the way I used to. I could give you a lot of good reasons—there's a British study, for instance, that just came out proving that eating local helped the environment twice as much even as eating organic. But all that's just an excuse. I'm hooked on the connections to the place I live. I spent the winter eating with my mind as well as my tongue, consuming connections along with my calories. It was the best dining I've ever done.
This was followed by another story that was a shade "closer to home" as it were, as I've been chowing down on the tomatoes (some brandywines amongst them) that we've been growing in the front garden.
"Mortgage Lifter Tomatoes"
GELLERMAN: These days at harvest festivals and county fairs you can find green thumb growers showing off the fruits of their labors--local produce grown with care and pride...and can anything be more worthy of a boast than a delectable tomato, ripening on the vine right in your own backyard? Especially those heirloom varieties, the ones with odd shapes, colors and names to match. There are the Tommy Toes, tiny as grapes, Brandywines, deep red as a glass of cabernet, and Banana Legs, yellow and yummy. Living on Earth's Jeff Young was curious about one of his favorites, a tomato with an especially peculiar name, and he discovered a story behind it as colorful as the fruit itself.
The stuff you grow yourself really does taste better, but it's also nice to know that it could potentially have a positive environmental impact. I've been riding my bike to school, too. So I guess that makes me even more of a stereotypical NPR-listening commie-pinko. Oh well...