Plenty (of time)

I just finished a book called Plenty by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon.  This couple writes about their experiences eating food within 100 miles of Vancouver for a year. I appreciate their stories about finding local food, however I would have liked to known more about their cooking and eating experiences. Overall it is well-written, and has some very interesting details about the loss of biodiversity that has resulted from our international food culture.

The book gave me some interesting ideas about eating locally too. The book mentions that "A study in the United Kingdom showed that the amount of time people now spend driving to the supermarket, looking for parking, and wandering the length ailes in search of frozen pizzas or pre-mixed salads is nearly equal to that spent preparing food from scratch twenty years ago". I thought this was a particularly interesting fact. I probably spend at least 2 hours a week grocery shopping. This summer all I will have to do is pick up my farm share, which will take about 20 minutes. So I will have an extra 1 hour and 40 minutes to cook and preserve food. Despite my concerns about having time to prepare and store foods, maybe I will have Plenty of time to eat locally after all.