Abbey Huggan

Building resilient communities inspires me the most because of how organic farmers not only work hard to keep us eating healthy food, their farms provide habitat for complex ecosystems that large monocultural and pesticide-laden farms do not. We need biodiversity more than ever if our ecosystems are to be resilient in the face of climate change. But also, supporting local farmers means supporting people who are doing what they love and working outside (so good for mental health!) and mostly paying their working well, and also taking on interns and teaching young people how to grow their own food. Is there anything more empowering? And then there is just plain having access to food when transportation costs make all our imported food too expensive. We need to support the local farmers now in order to make sure the growers are there when we need them in the future.

Well a sell by date is simply for the store-owner to be able to keep track of when things should move- it certainly doesn't mean to consumer needs to eat it by then - so if we choose things close to this date then we are helping prevent food waste. Use by and Best by are similar in that they are aimed at the consumer. Food is often not at all "bad" after these dates, but quality begins to go down. Some thing are totally fine for months after this date. Some things are not, however. You can limit food waste by keeping an eye on these dates and using things up quickly when they are close to the dates. 

Well a sell by date is simply for the store-owner to be able to keep track of when things should move- it certainly doesn't mean to consumer needs to eat it by then - so if we choose things close to this date then we are helping prevent food waste. Use by and Best by are similar in that they are aimed at the consumer. Food is often not at all "bad" after these dates, but quality begins to go down. Some thing are totally fine for months after this date. Some things are not, however. You can limit food waste by keeping an eye on these dates and using things up quickly when they are close to the dates. 

We might spend less on our groceries - and with the cash we'd save doing this, we could afford to support more sustainable local producers, whose products are often more expensive than the industrial, long-distance foods that populate our supermarket shelves

In my opinion, people in North America eat more meat that other countries because of government subsidies that support factory farms and make the price of meat artificially low, as well as a cultural history of fast food and the Anglo-Saxon ideal of "meat and potatoes". Meat consumption has also historically been out of (economic) reach for many cultural groups who are now in North America and who now have the income that makes this much more accessible. And there is the North American idea of "treating yourself" which is pervasive in our food culture...

I'd rather use this money supporting local farmers who use ecological practices and pay fair wages to their workers!