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Just wondering how many people think they are OK, under SOLE guidelines! Any particular brands you buy, or don't buy? Anything you've found an acceptable alternative for? Anything you grow your own?

dixiebelle wrote:Just wondering how many people think they are OK, under SOLE guidelines! Any particular brands you buy, or don't buy? Anything you've found an acceptable alternative for? Anything you grow your own?

for me. SOLE is about doing what I can, where I can. So yes, I buy Asian sauces. Usually Kikkoman for soy (light and dark). My fish sauce is imported, too, although I have some Asian friends who make it at home and I sometimes get a jar given to me!!

The pay-off, (for me, anyway!), is that I don't buy them from a spewpermarket, I usually buy from an Asian grocer (I work in the heart of Little Vietnam, in Melbourne's SE).

My theory is that I am not prepared to give up my Asian condiments, so if I buy them, it might as well be at a family-owned Asian mart, rather than at a multi nat.

I have a kejap manis at home that is made in OZ, I'll look tonight when I get home, and I also buy Charmaine Solomon's curry pastes, as they are made in Melb.

You'd have to be mad to try and live totally SOLE, so, for me at least, it's about robbing Peter to pay Paul.

It would seem to me that the important thing is the average number of "food miles" per gram of your meal. Since some of these condiments come from a very long way away, we off set that by the fact that we actually use only a relatively small amount of them. Thus we can keep the average to within an arbitrary limit that we choose. On Saturdays night's meal some of the ingredients, especially the spices came from overseas (as you would generally expect) but the amounts are very small compared to 2Kg for the leg of lamb which came from Gippsland. Average would be not much different than if I had used all local ingredients.

In the end IMHO, it is buying oranges from the USA and such like for example, especially things we can grow very well here anyway, that is really crazy. Spices and condiments are a different kettle of fish entirely.

I also like to buy my condiments from asian groceries. For all the reasons PG stated, but also because oftentimes the products are so much better quality and taste wise than what you can get at the stupor market.

Thanks guys! At first when I found out about SOLE food and Ethicurean ideals, I thought I would give up Asian style cooking (though I agree, it is at least closer than Europe, but I guess it also depends on how the goods got here) but then realised, I do a fair bit of Asian style cooking! I do like the idea of buying Cherikoff Spices and the challenge of finding global flavours, local produce... but in reality, I don't have time, or money, for that at the moment!

SOLE ≠ locavore
and in fact, being a locavore may not be the best solution environmentally in every case.

take, for example, rice. do you buy it grown in the victorian riverina, using water irrigated from the Murray and Murumbidgee rivers, do you stop eating rice until it can be viably grown in the northern rivers of NSW, or do you consider eating it from further afield?

The issue is far more complex than simply "buying australian" and the issues more complex than calculating food miles. Asparagus grown in Thailand, for example, is transported by air freight, whilst a bottle of fish sauce will arrive by sea. The latter is considered and environmentally friendly and energy efficient form of transportation, whilst the former is not.

It's great that you are all starting to think about these issues and apply them as best you can (or as best you are prepared to) to your lifestyle, and far better admitting to ourselves the concessions we make.

If one does a lot of Asian & Indian cooking as I do, it would be virtually impossible not to use Asian sauces & ingredients. Most of my sauces, etc, are products of Thailand, in particular, but also from Hong Kong, Malaysia & Indonesia- I try not to buy products from China, but can't seem to find any other 'dried shitake mushrooms' for example. I buy all of my spices from a local Indian grocer, and make my own spice pastes, but of course his spices are imported; he imports in bulk and packages them himself in a range of sized packets- I couldn't contemplate buying those piddly little glass jars from supermarkets, 1) I use heaps in any one dish, and 2) it would be far too expensive, but, more importantly 3) in no way 'ethical'.
As other's have discussed, I feel it's a matter of what we can individually do, what we're comfortable with, what we can afford, and spread the word to try to make others more aware of 'SOLE' principles.