Eat local

Re: “New food labelling lists allergens,” Aug. 6.

The article claims this labelling should be especially helpful to celiacs, who make up only one per cent of Canadians. Since 1996, genetically modified and engineered ingredients have been used in the public food supply for 100 per cent of Canadians and no labelling has been required. But wait — if your food was genetically modified, would you want to eat it?

Despite the fact “all Canadians have a right to know what the ingredients are in the food products they are buying,” according to Laurie Harada, executive director at Anaphylaxis Canada, who pushed for the new regulations, none of us really knows what is in our food.

In spite of Health Canada’s attempts at regulating ingredients content, as well as the best early efforts of the organic movement now in the process of being largely hijacked and greenwashed by industrial food sources, most of what is in what we eat, drink and breathe is at best unknown, and at worst, suspect.

It is tremendously important for consumers, the media, people in the business of promoting better food options, and community organizations to support local certified organic farmers, natural growers and niche food producers, many of whom take substantial risk and make tremendous personal investment to do what they do.

Doing so can help increase food security, diversify our economy and challenge assumptions about conventional food production. Without local producers, our choices would be more limited, as would likely accurate information on our food’s content.

Lison McCullough, Calgary Lison McCullough is the owner

of Pascal’s Patisserie.