(Applause)
The lessons I learned while Locavoring
This is Asaph, my miller.
He wanted to be a baker and ended up as the best miller I know.
This is Ayelet. For her 40th birthday, she started an organic farm
with her friend Neta. They grow my vegetables.
Sa'ar, was also my farmer, converted from
conventional farming to permaculture.
And this is Ichrak.
He is my wine-maker.
He retired and realized his dream
to make wine in the basement of his house.
These people make the food our family eats.
They are all my friends and neighbours.
But it wasn't always like that.
I was always fascinated by the origins and sources of our food.
I read books about the history of food;
I learned the politics of food;
I reconstructed ancient recipes and feasts;
I even studied it in university.
Doing all that, the most important thing I learned,
was that, as we move away from our involvement
in the production of our food,
we compromise our health, our environment
and our society.
We eat cheap food that is grown by people who can't afford it,
in ways that spoil land and water,
then processed in ways that create
huge amounts of waste that kills wildlife,
and jeopardise our health.
We can do all that because we don't see it.
It's removed from our lives.
But I still wanted to find the way
to know more about where my food comes from.
Like with any problem I need to solve, I went to my wife.
And she did what she always does.
She raised the stakes even higher.
and told me I need to self-experiment.
So we embarked on another adventure
to change my life.
For a whole year, I ate only food I knew was local.
Only food I knew for sure
was grown here.
I tackled my year of locavoring head on,
walked into a supermarket with some hard questions,
and that was also when I understood
I may have a problem.
It turns out that according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics,
most of our food, is imported.
even 33 percent of our fresh fruits and vegetables are imported.
Sadly, even the most famous local brands I knew from my childhood,
are not local anymore.
The most amusing example is the Sardines of the Sea of Galilee.
The reputation was so good, that even when
they stopped bringing the sardines from the sea of Galilee,
they kept the name, and wrote the little letters on the side,
"New, now imported".
I moved on to discover that my locally branded garlic
come from China.
The Greek, the Galilean olive oil is Greek,
and the farm fresh eggs come from Turkey.
What should I do?
The first thing I realised was that
I have nothing to do in supermarkets.
Supermarkets are made of merchandise, not food.
Most of the time, we won't have a clue
where it came from.
I left the supermarket, seeking a solution
in my community.
A few days ago, as I was preparing for this lecture,
my daughter, now 7, said she wanted to hear it.
So I gave her the lecture, and when we got to this last part
She stopped me, looked at me in a strange way in the eyes and said,
"Dad, did you really ever go into supermarkets?
Are you sure you really wrote that?"
By now, supermarkets are unthinkable in our family.
However, I needed to find people
that sell food and know its origins.
Soon, I found that every professional in small shops
knew exactly the origin of the food.
We conducted an experiment with butchers.
We asked them where one of the calves was raised.
The butcher in the supermarket didn't have a clue.
Even the butcher in the butchery chain didn't know.
The only ones that knew, were the real professional butchers,
that own their local shops.
They knew exactly the origin of the meat.
I went back buying food the way my grandparents used to.
Meat from the butcher, vegetables from the farmer in the market,
and flowers from Asaph's mill.
I got to know my community.
I started my year with food in my mind.
But I ended up with a community.
I learned that in order to eat nutritious food,
I need to know where it comes from.
In order to know where it comes from,
I need to get to know my community.
Think how much money we invest in food in our lives.
Many years of buying food, every week, an enormous amount.
Think about the influence
each of us could have if we change the way
we invest that money.
I was lecturing to Bedouin teachers about local food, a few weeks ago.
When I finished, the Head Master of the school came to me
and asked me if, and he said
that there is a local Bedouin phrase for the importance of local economy.
In Arabic it's (speaking Arabic)
It means that if I move something from one of my heads to the other,
It stays with me.
In the tribe it meant that if I give you something, I can't lose.
Because it stays in our community.
As we learn to see the power of locavoring,
we also started to hear the skeptics.
It's too hard, supermarket has everything in one place.
And so on. Chain stores are much more visible.
So now we're working on a project that will
make the local and the small more visible.
We are creating a platform that will give the community a tool
to map the local shops and businesses.
We're creating it with volunteers from the community
for the community.
We're calling it The Makomit.
Makomit is local in Hebrew.
The strength of our community influences the quality of our food
and the way we acquire the food
influences the resilience of our community.
I want to thank my community.
Thank you.
(Applause)