People, ourselves included, talk endlessly about "sustainable" eating and growing. Amid all the confusion about what that means, we've realized that for us as a restaurant, sustainability is as much about careful consideration of food choices as about any particular criteria for a product or farming practice.

There's a whole matrix of variables that we consider when trying to identify "sustainably" produced foods. For instance, a vegetable or fruit that is raised "sustainably" is probably planted and tended without the use of pesticides or nitrogen-based fertilizers. Chemical pesticides have been tied to increased cancer risk; they also cajole plants out of maintaining their innate immune systems, making them more, rather than less, susceptible to parasite and blight; without their immune systems, plants lose their high anti-oxidant properties and become less valuable from a nutritional standpoint. However, if a chemical-free vegetable is grown on an organic farm on the West Coast and flown thousands of miles to us here in Athens, Georgia, the total energy expended in that transport has significant environmental ramifications. To further complicate matters, fruits and vegetables transported over long distances lose crucial vitamins and minerals, not to mention that irreplaceable just-picked flavor. Plus, in buying from afar, we've chosen to withhold our business from the local economy, denying local farmers precious pennies in the name of buying "organic". The weighing of these variables makes up the calculus of our vision of sustainable eating.

Recently, we've been grappling with the question of shrimp. South Georgia shrimp are the pride of this state's seafood market, and are exposed to less pollution than Florida Gulf shrimp. We're lucky to be able to get them delivered by Tim DeGroff, owner and operator of our local fish store. When Tim can't afford to drive to South Georgia to pick up shrimp, we have to ask ourselves if it is sustainable to start buying from a larger distributor, and in so doing actively participate in slowing Tim's business, and decrease the chances of him getting back down to the coast any time soon. Or is it more sustainable to buy Tim's Florida shrimp, and expose our customers to more second-hand chemical exposure in the name of loyalty, and the long-term goal of expanding his market as well as the local food options in our community.

We try our hardest to consider and reconsider all of these variables in our purchasing decisions, and come up with a definition for "sustainable" that is responsive, flexible, and specific to the context of each purchase. We prioritize buying locally because small, human-scale food systems present solutions to many of the problems we see plaguing our environment, our health, and our economy right now. It may sound like a high-minded aspiration for a restaurant, but we believe that if we eat food that hasn't lost its vitamins and minerals, and that hasn't been treated with antibiotics and hormones, we as a population won't get as sick or as fat as we have been getting; we believe that if we purchase from local farmers and purveyors, we'll do our part to mitigate the overall environmental effects of industrial agriculture and a globalized food system. We choose Tim's Florida shrimp, ride out the two weeks, and encourage him to make more frequent trips down South by promising to buy more of his next load. And sometimes we buy a wholesaler's Georgia shrimp, because we don't want folks eating more polluted shrimp week after week.

Eating well means that your food should be carefully, but not necessarily complicatedly, prepared; it means that you have done no harm to the earth, and maybe even some good, in choosing to eat what you have; it means, perhaps most importantly, not being harmed by your food, unknowingly and without recourse. We at farm 255 believe that eating "sustainably" means asking these questions, and making thoughtful, well-educated choices everyday.

Tamar Adler & Olivia Sargeant
Chefs, farm 255
Athens, Georgia

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