Sounds like fun!

Heh, my version of "eat local" is "order as much as I can from the local section of freshdirect". For I am lazy, so very very lazy.

I'm impressed though, Miko, very cool.

It's cheating to do it here- it's completely easy, especially this time of year. We even have local olive oil. I end up eating local just by default, except for tea and bananas. And sugar, I guess.

Do they have Niman Ranch there, Miko? I thought it was Californian.

I'm eating loco. Does that count?

Everybody's eatin' a brand new lunch now.
Come on baby, do the Loco-gustion.
I know you'll get to like it if you give it a chance now.
Come on baby, do the Loco-gustion.
My little baby sister can do it with ease,
It's easier than learnin' your ABCs.
So, come on, come on, and do The Loco-gustion with me.
You've got to swing your fork now,
Oooo ...
Come on,
Oooo ...
Come on.
Jump up,
Oooo ...
Jump up.
Jump back,
Oooo ...
Jump back.
Oh, well, I think you've got the knack.
Oooo ...
Woah ... woah.
Now that you can do it, well, let's eat a cake now.
Come on baby, do the Loco-gustion.
A chugga-chugga motion like a stomach ache, now.
Come on baby, do the Loco-gustion.
Do it nice and easy now, and don't lose control,
A little bit of rhythm and a lot of soul,
So, come on, come on, and do The Loco-gustion with me.
Woah ... woah.
Move around the table in a loco-gustion.
Come on baby, do the Loco-gustion.
Do it holdin' hands if'n you feel rumbustion.
Come on baby, do the Loco-gustion.
There's never been a meal that's so easy to eat,
It even makes you cooler when you're feelin' the heat.
So, come on, come on, and do The Loco-gustion with me.
Come on baby, do the Loco-gustion.
So, come on, come on, and do The Loco-gustion with me.
Come on baby, do the Loco-gustion.
So, come on, come on, and do The Loco-gustion with me.
Come on baby, do the Loco-gustion.
Come on baby, do the Loco-gustion.
Come on baby, do the Loco-gustion.


Please forgive me

The Eat Local challenge piques my curiosity, and I've been reading a great many bloggers practicing it, though I haven't yet taken it up. For the past 7 years or so, I've tried harder to provision foods locally, but I haven't taken on the whole she-bang.

One variation of Eat Local gives dispensation for exotic items (like spices, coffee, tea) that have long been traded as luxury commodities, with the idea that a diet founded on local foods but spiced up with small but potent imports poses a more accessible version for those (like me) who find it hard to imagine, say, cooking without black pepper, or making it through a month without coffee.*

I've encountered one criticism that I'd love to hear discussed: that local resources may not be the most environmentally friendly option. The example I can remember posited that, for example, rice grown in the southern U.S. and trucked less than 100 miles can easily use more fossil fuel than rice grown in southeast Asia and shipped to the southeastern U.S.

I understand that Eat Local isn't only (or sometimes even primarily) about energy conservation, but about putting a face to the commodities we consume every day, but I thought this point was worth exploring, if only to refute it as unfounded.

*Nonnegotiable. Right now, I need it as I never have before.

EatLoc AskMeCha: Last month, I started reading the archives of a weblog of a woman who documented her shopping, cooking, and eating while challenging herself to Eat Local and to restrict herself to the budget and guidelines for food stamp recipients.

Then I lost the link, somehow. Anyone have any notion who or where (internetly speaking) she might be? If I recall correctly, it was just her and her partner/husband, no kids, and she was in central or northern California. Any ideas?

No doing the challenge, but I'm always trying to move to more locally produced food. It's great for the environment, and generally food produced by small farmers or individuals tastes so much better. I really need my own garden next year.

Elsa, are you thinking of Rebecca Blood?

Sil: YES! Thank you! Fantastic!

Awesome, I enjoyed reading that too :)

We have farmers' markets every week where I live where almost all of the food is produced within 25 miles of my town. It's where I get virtually all of my fruit and veg as well as eggs and whatever fish I eat. Meat is from a local butcher or deli. There's very little food that I eat that is from there. There's some stuff that just isn't made in the UK and there's no way I can do without tea, coffee, herbs, spices, rice or olive oil.

Do they have Niman Ranch there, Miko? I thought it was Californian.

It is. However, they source meat from something like 17 states, and they're offered at Flatbread because they're all sorts of local/sustainable/ethical, so a better source than IPC or something.

Elsa: that stuff about how eating locally is supposed to be less environmentally healthy is generally a product of lobbying backlash, when you track down who the writers are (the most famous Op-Ed to make the rounds recently focused on New Zealand. That nation is pretty economically dependent on exporting and has a vested interest in discouraging the food miles idea. The Wikipedia entry on this isn't too bad.

Taking a stance against concern for food miles is pretty much an attempt to defend the status quo by selecting a few examples that seem to disprove the basic idea, when those examples, when correct, aren't really the norm.

Also, they were comparing resources needed to grow food in different climates. Yes, it's much harder to grow rice in New England. Therefore, if you try to grow rice in this hostiel climate, you'll use way too much water and have to fertilize like mad to get any tield in our short growing season. These practices are bad, but they're bad farming practices, not bad transportation practices; that doesn't make shipping rice in by the truckload from down South better than just choosing rice less often. And growing crops that need ridiculous resources to survive in your bioregion should generally be avoided in any case.

We went 'round that barn in our Slow Food group last month and had some investigative discussion about it. Slashfood, Though it's true that it can sometimes be more fuel efficient to source a product in enormous bulk and truck it 1500 miles, it's still in very rare, product-by-specific-product cases that it actually pans out better in terms of overall environmental impact, and as a global system it is still an environmental nightmare.

In any case, fossil fuel miles are only a fraction of the reason to eat locally, as you mentioned. Other reasons I'm pretty keen on:

-more dollars remaining in your community (plenty of good economic data on this)
-more land preserved as open space
-increased regional and local security in an age when transportation infrastructure problems, natural disasters, and terrorist events will become increasingly more common
-preservation of knowledge of local soils, conditions, climate
-greater variety of foods, more unusual foods
-better tasting, fresher, better quality - meats tend to be better fed and more delicious
-you get to know a lot of people you wouldn't otherwise meet
-you develop a stronger feeling for the season and the produce it brings with it
-

Thanks, Miko, I knew you'd be the person to ask about this, and I figured if there was a grain of sensible truth, not just political sophistry, in this contrarian wave, you'd have it sussed out.

(To sum up: you work hard so I don't have to.)

Incidentally: are you planning to attend the Commonground Fair this year?

I'm out the door (to pick up some local vegetables, appropriately enough), but I'll check out the thread again when I return.

Oh god no. Where I live I suspect it would kill me!

I have been wanting to go to Common Ground for ages. It has the terrible habit of falling the weekend after a very intensive weekend event at my workplace, and usually I'm too trashed out to go and just want to hole up and rest. Every year I swear I'm gonna do it and so far it hasn't come to pass. This year I *might* make it, but I'm gonna play it by ear - if I commit now I'll probably want to wiggle out of it when it's time to put the pedal to the metal. It's about a 4-hour drive from [TR].

What I'd really like is to work there as a volunteer and get the free camping all weekend. It looks wonderful!

Do you go?

I plan to do this starting next summer. My living arrangements won't allow for it until December and from what I've read it's almost suicidal to attempt this in my climate if you haven't had a chance to preserve the local summer/fall harvest.

Yes; kale gets old.

A million years later, I'm back!

Miko, I haven't gone to the Commonground for a couple of years, but barring the drive, it's the most relaxing kind of outing. The visitors tend to be laid back and cheerful, the food is remarkably good (and every year, the committee works to make it more sustainable & more locally sourced), and I always bring mesh marketing bags so I can do stock up on fall crops at the tiny farmstands on my way out of the fairgrounds.

I buy Christmas presents at the craft booths, see exhibitions with my niece, and just breathe happily away from the bustle of a new school year, work, and whatever excitement is turning my life upside-down at the moment.

Yes; kale gets old.

I have yet to tire of kale over any winter. That may be the copious amounts of garlic I'm tossing in with it, though.

Thanks, Miko. I've read some pieces against the Eat Local movement lately and I figured they were hooey but needed to research it. Thanks for doing it for me.