Eater-based Conservation

Regional food is true luxury. Forget about houses, cars, clothes and jewelry, this stuff can be bought all over and doesn´t even have a lot of useful value. But what about all these rare local foods that just aren´t available? What about escaping the standardized taste and food shelves? There is a whole bunch of great food out there that is truly tasteful, special and even much more nutritious (Pollan 2008) then the stuff that major grocers offer today. The problem is that most of it is not fit to be produced to serve the economies of scale. Most of it is so delicate and special that it can only be grown and raised in small amounts and thereby not worth the attention of the retail chain. But if you like to be a free consumer with free will and the extra sense for luxury get your diamonds at the local farmers, look for those special tomatoes and basil and chicken and ... your taste buds will love you! And you also safe rare plants and support biodiversity. 

There has been a great article at the NYT about the matter. I wish there would be something like that for Germany. But maybe I´ll do it... In any case, go and contact your local SlowFood group. They know where you really want to spent your money to impress your company. It is a great organization which integrates growing and taste and social as well as environmental awareness. And it is active world wide. I asked mine where I can find great tomato plants to grow at the green house in my university (soon to be blogged) and now I have a black, yellow, pink, green and red variety. I can´t wait.