Can we keep our food miles in check?

Last week, my neighbour posted a picture of freshly harvested basale soppu (Malabar spinach) and coriander on our community WhatsApp group, asking people to pick up desired portions from her garden, where she’d put the greens out in a wicker basket. Seeing that I needed to garnish my dal with some coriander, I walked the 20 steps from my kitchen to her garden and picked up a handful. Inhaling its fresh, high-pitched, grassy aroma, I trotted back to my kitchen, rinsed it, tore it into bits, and tossed it into my simmering pot of dal. It struck me that the meal I was about to put on the table could possibly be a small win for my family, as well as the planet. It was low on food miles, and, as a result, greenhouse gas emissions — all the ingredients, like the dal and the raw mango, the rice, and the vegetables in the salad, including home-grown cherry tomatoes, and of course the coriander, were sourced from within a 100 kilometres from where I live. My community grocer, like many others in the city, has a farm not too far from us, and it helps to live in a place with easy access to the local santhe and mandi, too.

What are food miles? A simple Google search will give you all the details and statistics on the topic, and tell you that the lack of efficacy of food freight management in India is to blame for our escalating carbon footprint. Some claims will point to the hundreds of kilometres certain vegetables traverse in order to reach some of our kitchens. There’s also enough fodder on social media to educate us on what the burning issues are according to influencers (don’t cook vegetables because you’re burning gas, choose frozen vegetables with nutrients locked in because fresh ones are in transit for too long), which actually have little bearing on our day to day lives. Research studies are often confusing or macro-lensed, and the small steps we take to do good for our planet seem pointless. In order to understand what we can do to keep our food miles in check, here are some simple things to consider when presented with complex data:
 

♦ Food is responsible for approximately 26% of global GHG emissions, and most of it is from land use. Non-food markers are mostly crop production, livestock and fisheries, and the supply chain elements, like processing, packaging, transport and retail. But, we can’t stop eating or cooking food: which means, we can’t stop using land to grow our food and to rear livestock.
♦ What we can do is: try and grow some of our own food (even if it’s just herbs and tomatoes, to begin with), consume meat more selectively and consciously say no to packaged items — both groceries and prepared foods — by using our own containers and making our own “snacks,” which naturally leads us to consider sourcing ingredients locally.
♦ We can’t find a magic wand to wave this problem away. It’s not just about eating local or eating smart, but about looking at all the micro-level factors that impact the bigger problem. Are we eating more fruits and vegetables, are we segregating our waste and saying no to disposable packaging, are we making sure we don’t waste food, are we having important conversations with our local farmers and policymakers, or at least, listening to them, to help the agro-industry become more sustainable and efficient, and helping find more tech-driven approaches to make low-carbon food options affordable, accessible and scalable?

So, the next time you reach for an imported fruit or vegetable like plum or asparagus, which has been treated before travelling far and wide to reach you in just-so condition, see if you can find an alternative option at the local market. Similarly, while imported pasta and cheese are a delight to the well-travelled connoisseur’s taste buds, one can just as easily re-create the effect with products grown and made right here, in namma ooru. Here’s how you can have a high-scoring Michelin-star meal that seems exotic but is as local as it gets.

Millet noodles with creamed kempu harive soppu
(Serves 2)
l    l½ box millet noodles
l    1 bunch kempu harive soppu, washed and chopped
l    1 tablespoon fresh cream
l Salt and pepper as needed
For the sauce:
l    1 tablespoon butter
l    1 medium-sized onion
l    3-4 cloves of garlic
l    ¼ teaspoon red chilli powder
l    1 teaspoon dried mint
l    2 tablespoons millet or whole wheat flour
l    2 cups milk, heated

For the topping:
l    1 tablespoon butter or coconut oil
¼ cup coarsely ground roasted peanuts/ cashews
l    2 teaspoons crushed, roasted pumpkin seeds
l    2 tablespoons grated or crumbled paneer (optional)
l    Salt and pepper according to preference

Method
Cook the noodles according to package instructions, drain the water and transfer to a big plate. Drizzle some neutral-flavoured oil like cold-pressed coconut oil on it, to prevent the noodles from clumping. Cook the greens with a little bit of fresh cream, until just softened, and season with salt and pepper. Set aside. For the topping, melt the butter in a pan (or heat the coconut oil), turn off the heat, toss in the nuts and seeds, add salt and pepper, and set aside. For the sauce – heat the butter in the same pan, add the onion and garlic, cook down until light brown and soft. Add the chilli flakes and mint, and then mix in the flour. Cook the roux, stirring constantly, for about 2 minutes on low heat. Switch to a wire whisk and slowly add the hot milk, whisking continuously. Once the sauce comes to a simmer, cook for 2-3 more minutes, stirring as it bubbles over. Gently fold the cooked greens into the sauce. Plate the cooked noodles, pour the creamed greens on top, and top with the buttered nuts and seeds. Scatter some of the crumbled paneer, season with more salt and pepper as needed, and serve immediately.

(Ranjini Rao is a communications professor, author, and podcaster, straddling multiple worlds in Bengaluru. She’s passionate about urban farming and sustainable living, and can mostly be found cooking and baking in her little kitchen where, surrounded by heirloom coffee kettles and mismatched tea cups, she finds her chi.)