local and smaller producers use less oil. But it would also increase the price to the
consumer. As prices rose, so would the number of people who saw the advantage
of growing their own. And such a movement would give birth to a whole raft of
revived industries, from seed producers to nurseries, greenhouses, natural fertil
izers, and garden tools.
There seems little doubt that such a domino effect would result in us eating
better and eating less. By doing so, we might live longer, healthier, and more ac
tive lives, with much lower healthcare costs.
Utopian? Well, yes, I suppose so, but isn’t that really more appropriate than
the “Nudge-nudge, wink-wink . . . say no more” that, with its political procrasti
nation, seems to have had barely any impact on our ever-increasing addiction to
convenience and to pharmaceuticals to somehow keep us going?
Add to the swing toward plant life the concept of reduced portions—
especially as we age—and the business of eating is ripe for massive change.
Changing a food habit, however, is considered by some experts to be harder
than breaking a heroin addiction—largely because we must continue to eat!
One thing that may help us is a random factor that would appear to be just
over the horizon but surely coming soon to a table like yours: our economy and
the impact of higher oil prices on our artificially low food prices. When we get
substantially higher gas prices, the present road transport system that brings pro-
duce over a thousand miles in the off-season may well be severely curtailed, and
local, sustainable, seasonal agriculture may take its place.
Even then, the actual farming overhead costs will become painfully obvious,14 • GROWING AT THE SPEED OF LIFE