52 weeks, no blisters: Harvest Festival 39/13 weeks

Two words that always get Mark to show up; CORN BOIL!

We spent this Sunday in downtown Victoria celebrating a farmer's market/food festival. We decided to forgo the usual hike in favor of an awareness gathering event that we feel pretty strongly about; locally produced food. Plus, we love food. Especially locally-grown, fresh and delicious food.

The Harvest Festival was organized by Eat Here Now in support of a year round farmers market here in Victoria. Rumour has it that if our island was cut off from mainland deliveries we would run out of food in three days. Given the population numbers of the island that concept does not paint a very pretty picture. We need to move islanders into a more sustainable direction as far as food production. An adoption of a vegetarian diet would serve islanders profoundly as the resources of the island could be put to use in primary food production. This would solve the problem of channeling our resources through farm animals for questionable protein. The United Nations once reported that the amount of grain needed to end extreme hunger was 40 million tons. At that time North America was feeding farm animals a staggering 540 million tons. Even at that enormous rate of grain consumption, the resulting meat can only feed 35% of the world.
I believe the predictions for the dire outcome regarding our food supply is based on the consumption of meat. Our resources will last longer when we are not feeding farm animals. If meat eating islanders ate a vegetarian diet for just a portion of the week we could extend our food supply significantly.
So feast your eyes on a little bit of what this island has to offer. And notice there are no pictures of the booths selling salmon or free range birds... and I will shoot a quick email off to the organizers of this event to ask them to add more vegetarian choices next year.