I was inspired in part by our recent Q&A about eco-friendly living to make a serious effort to shop locally. Starting in August is relatively easy since, here in Vancouver at least, there is a wealth of wonderful local produce, much of it organic. But August or not, I quickly ran into some serious limitations. It turns out that it’s virtually impossible to buy 100% local.

But living a little more sustainably is better than not sustainably at all, so here’s my list of the products that I can’t buy locally, but can’t live without. Call it a get out of jail free list if you like, and console yourself with the thought that if most of what you’re buying is local you’re making a huge difference.

Five things I can’t buy locally, yet…

1. First and most obvious of all: coffee. I’ve given up coffee about 30 times in the last 10 years, for on average two days each time I tried. It’s futile, never going to happen, a bust as they say. Until the climate in Vancouver radically changes, I’m afraid I’ll still be relying on air shipments of Lavazza Gold. But what I am going to do, starting tomorrow, is stop buying coffee in disposable cups. It’s completely avoidable with a tiny bit of planning.
2. Olive oil’s next. Call me a cooking snob if you like, but I can’t use anything else for frying onions, roasting my world-famous-in-my-own-mind-potatoes or virtually anything else that takes place in our kitchen. I did find an article about some adventurous folks who’ve been growing olives for years now on Pender Island, just off the coast of Vancouver, but I don’t think they’re producing oil commercially, yet… I’ll be first on their customer list if it happens.
3. Bananas, of course. They’re a superfood in so many ways, and both my daughter and my cat (yes, don’t ask) love them to bits. Surely someone could grow them indoors, anyone?
4. Pasta. Again I might just be a food snob, but I haven’t been able to find any pasta made in Canada (let alone BC) that comes close to my current favorite dried pasta brand, Rustichella D’Abruzzo. I’m a real believer that the kind of pasta you use is not incidental to the quality of your final dish. But that said, we grow enough wheat in Canada that it must only be a matter of time before someone fills the void.
5. Last but not least it’s something that I can live without but my better half certainly can’t. Chocolate, of course, which not only isn’t local but often originates from countries caught in the throes of political and economic turmoil. My answer here is to buy organic, fair trade products such as Ottawa’s own Cocoa Camino brand, which guarantees both a sustainable product and a fair wage for the producer.

So in August when the shelves are packed with local cherries, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries, it has been difficult but not impossible to shop mostly local. At the very least I know that by choosing local products when they are available I’m sending a message to retailers that their customers want more.

And here’s the most important thing: so often our supermarkets simply don’t stock things that are grown quite literally just around the corner. The only way that will change is if we take a little extra time and spend a little more money to shop elsewhere.

Photo courtesy of ian_ransley.