A friend and I were talking recently about sustainable — everything. The conversation was actually around sustainable food, sustainable housing, and sustainable energy, but it occurred to me that we actually need more than that.
We all eat too much processed food. This fact is having an impact on our physical health and welfare, our happiness, and our pocketbook. Our busy lives demand that we are always eating on the run, and we have become accustomed to just popping a packaged something in the microwave instead of taking the time to prepare a meal. We have immediate gratification, but we suffer in the longer term.
Many of us don’t have the time or know how to prepare our own healthy food. Many are are suffering long term effects from that, both physically and mentally.
The Community Garden
One solution to that is growing our own food. Those of us with good back yards can do that, but many of us aren’t that lucky. We might live in an apartment, or we might not have the space, or we might not have the time or the expertise.
Fortunately, community gardens are springing up all over the place, and we are lucky to have the Acadia Park food garden. This is a fantastic part of Sackville and provides many benefits.
- There are quite a few in the community who can’t afford to buy all of their own food. We have some great food banks, and these help out a lot. There are better options. The Sackville community garden allows people to grow their own vegetables. This reduces their costs and ensures that they still have a very healthy alternative.
- Many of us live in apartments, and don’t have the luxury of having a back yard for our own garden. The community garden gives us that garden.
- If we didn’t grow up growing and preparing our own food, we may not have ever learned how. There is a sense of camaraderie at the community food garden, where people will help each other out.
Square Roots
The community food garden is only one way that we can provide another food source. It takes work and it takes time, but the benefit is having the freshest vegetables possible. Another option is for a low cost subscription fresh food vendor. One of the subscription food services is called Square Roots. Square Roots provides about a 10 pound box of fresh vegetables — farm to you — each month, for only $10 per month. You are also able to double up on the cost, and a second box of vegetables is delivered to a second family who may be unable to afford their own.
This is a model that I first heard about, some 10 years ago when a friend of mine was growing the food on her farm for it.
Of all of the things that you can get on a subscription basis, I think that farm fresh food is probably the best thing that you can get.
As the stresses of life increase, and as we become more busy all the time, we need to be able to have more healthy options available. The Community Garden and Square Roots provide two sustainable options to help.