The week in review: what it cost

I was surprised to find that (with a few exceptions) the foods I sourced locally were no more expensive than comparable foods from other regions. While it's true that my choices were severely restricted, what was available was priced competitively. Those overseas are happy to pay a premium for a New Zealand product, but it seems that locally the market will not bear that burden.

I spent $131.93 on food over the week. It breaks down almost into quarters:

$31.87 spent on meat
$33.19 spent on wine
$36.10 spent on fruits and vegetables
$30.77 spent on dairy, eggs, and honey

This is not a typical shopping week for me, or for most people. Cheap calories aren't found in the climate-controlled areas of the supermarket where foods expire quickly. The best bang for your buck is rice, bread, and pasta, none of which could be considered local. I would be surprised if the average shopper spent half as much per person in any of the four sections I've listed my spending in -- it doesn't make financial sense. It's as though I have left the sandwiches and only eaten the filling.

I could never continue to live on a diet of local food. The first thing I did when the week was over was order a pizza, followed closely by the construction of a sandwich. Certainly I enjoyed the filling, but it was the breadiness that made it satisfying. The pizza was the same; we order pizzas by topping just as we divide painters by style, but without a canvas neither would be possible. The substrate is as important as the finish.

Has this week changed my thoughts on local food? Well, I had never looked at a chart of seasonal produce before this challenge, or the Wikipedia page on cheese production, or investigated the beer-brewing process. Creativity requires restrictions like ivy requires a wall, and the week has channelled my natural curiosity in very specific directions.
When you peer under rocks and pull back curtains it makes you engage with the world in a way that you hadn't been conscious of before. If I travel through Northland and see nothing but dairy farms, I may wonder if I was misinformed about the plurality of beef cattle there. If I see a bottle of Malbec, I may turn it around to check the region. I will be awake to these things and more aware of the vast food-making world, and my tiny consuming role in it.