FOOD FOR THE BRAIN....

– “A closed mouth don’t get fed and a lazy hustler don’t get bread!!!!!!!!!” (e-40)

Interdependence and our food supply, or should I say “food miles”

Interdependence as I am learning can occur anywhere and at any scale. Interdependence is everywhere, as we (as a nation) are utterly useless; we rely on food from all over the globe to get by on a day to day basis. The UK is dependent on the food supply from other countries in order to feed its ever growing population with the little luxuries it requires. Our reliance on food from overseas ranges from the basic’s; it could be one of our 5 a day, or it could be a specialty ingredient in that green Thai curry that’s being cooked for dinner.

     The UK over the last 10 years has seen an 200% increase in the amount of food that is imported to the country (agristats).  The graph below (made using data from agristats) shows the increase in food imports over the last 10 years in the UK.  Where is all this food coming from? Why is the UK importing all of this food?  Why has there been a sudden increase in the last 10 years? How did, as a nation and as a species ever survive without importing food?

Is our demand for a “high class, well cultured” life style to blame for our lack of self sufficiency?

We as a nation are informed by the government to eat at least 5 a day. 5 portions of fruit and vegetables as a minimum/day/person... that is a lot of fruit and veg, (if everyone took this advice on board!) where would we get all the food from?

The national health service advice us to....

For breakfast...

“...chop up pineapple and kiwi for breakfast, add banana chips to your cereal, and slice up an avocado for toast” and for lunch/dinner... “enjoy an avocado and prawn salad, a spicy bean and rice salad, rice cakes with vegetable dippers” I’m no expert on diets, nutrition and food however what I do know and understand is that the UK doesn’t produce half of those foods listed above, therefore they would have to import them.  For this the UK relies on trade links with other countries, and also leaves its self vulnerable to changes in commodity prices. For instance 5 years ago the price of a ton of rice was $290.00, now in 2010 the price of a tonne of rice is $517.00 (indexmundi), the price of rice has nearly doubled in 5 years.   The UK’s reliance and adoration for “exotic” food leaves it exposed and vulnerable to changes and fluctuations in other countries, countries from which it sources its food to feed its nation.  Thus the UK is reliant upon the

·         Weather

·         Climate

·         Environmental

·         Political

·         Economical

...conditions within the country of growth for the food supply of its nation.  If one of these factors is to falter it could affect, the price and quantity of supply of a particular food.  However as this is interdependence, we are not the only population that is affected.  The supplying country is also affected by the same conditions that are bullet pointed above; however, the severity of the condition will increase.

Here are some pictures I have taken on a recent trip to the “super-market”; they are also some examples of our interdependence.

Interdependence in the context of food supply is strongly linked to sustainability. 

One way in which this is measured is by food miles, above is a picture from next generation food in which they show the average food miles for some our dietary “bread & butter”.

So who is to blame for our interdependence on exotic food?... the NHS informing us to consume 5 a day; the brighter and more colourful = the better, the culture of “high class”, or the notion of being “well cultured”?

Sources:

 http://www.ukagriculture.com/statistics/farming_statistics.cfm?strsection=Export / Import

http://www.nhs.uk/Tools/Pages/5aday.aspx

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=rice&months=60

Next generation food.

Emergency By Neil Strauss

An extract from the book called “Emergency” by one of my favorite authors Neil Strauss…

… “But as the world of survivalism opened up, I began to realize that I’d been rendered completely helpless by convenience.  Maybe the instructors at tracker school had a point.  Life was more exciting now that I was learning to handle just about anything that came my way without having to depend on anyone else.  Two decades after puberty, I was finally becoming a man.

As my obsession with figuring out how to do everything myself intensified, I drove to a self-sufficient community called the Commonweal Garden outside San Francisco that was part of what’s called he permaculture movement.  I wanted to learn how to design a completely sustainable life from scratch.  On the roof of one of the houses there, for example, there was a rainwater catchment, which fed water into a shower below.  The run off from the shower filled a pond, which supported ducks.  The ducks ate bugs off strawberries in the garden, which were served for breakfast.  The left over breakfast scraps were dropped into a bin of worms, which were used o feed fish that maintained the balance in the pond and the worm’s waste was used to fertilize the strawberries.

It was the perfect closed, interdependent system, a microcosm of Planet Earth.”

Page 312.

Maxine xoxo

This.. helps my brain.. ??

This is the best definition I've found so far... HOW CONFUSING, why did we choose to be honest about knowing nothing regarding interdependence??

"Within human geography, it [interdependence] is a view of a system as a whole, stressing the role of each part of the system. For example, an advanced economy may depend on the raw materials of a less advanced economy just as much as the latter depends on the finished goods and technology of the former."

I'd tell you where I got the quote from but I can't remember, so I won't. Cheers!!

L x

Small Scale Interdependence

Interdependence can occur on a small scale, for example in the physical realm of geography. Symbiosis is where the life of one species is directly dependent on the presence /existence of another.  The two species that engage in the relationship of symbiosis will benefit mutually from the interdependence that they share.  For example the clown fish and sea anemone.

The clown fish lives in the sea anemone and feeds of the small invertebrate that also live in the sea anemone. (The small invertebrates are detrimental to the survival of the sea anemone).  The clown fish will eat the small invertebrate, and then turn it into fecal matter, which will then in turn supply the ocean/sea with more nutrients to reciprocally feed the sea anemone. If the clown fish were removed from this relationship the small invertebrates would attack and or eat the sea anemone. Therefore the clown fish and the sea anemone live in symbiosis. The sea anemone provides a home / safe environment for the clown fish and the clown fish eats the small invertebrates which would otherwise cause the sea anemone harm. Everyone is a winner!!!!!!!

Interdependence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPHaTLQo2zE

Definitions.....

Karl Marx, The German communist, first used the term interdependence in the communist Manifesto (1848), in describing the..

"Universal interdependence of nations in comparison to the old local and national seclusion of independence and self-sufficiency".