Eating Close to Home: the Locavore and Other Challenges
Written by Asinus Asinum Fricat on May 17, 2008 – 8:15 am -What happens when one takes on the challenge to eat only locally produced food (and wine) and all within a 160 kilometer radius (100 miles) for an entire month? It’s about getting back to our grassroots, supporting our local farmers and reducing the miles our food travels from paddock to plate. It’s that simple. It is a movement sweeping the world.
Coined by a Bay Area group, the term locavore refers to people who only eat food grown, processed and produced within a 100 mile radius of where they live.
More and more of us are turning our backs on imported products and getting back to our grassroots supporting local farmers and producers. Eating local food cuts back the distance it travels from the paddock to the plate and in turn reduces harm to the environment.
How many times have you heard “I can’t eat local foods because they cost too much?” Well, it’s a challenge as every ingredient in every mouthful eaten for the month should come from the local food markets right down to the last grain of salt. Vegetables, meats & seafood are relatively easy. But exotic fruits, coffee, tea and many spices are virtually impossible. Forget that trip to the Asian market for that month! The point is to learn where your food comes from, save energy and keep farms from being sold to developers, or worse, turned into GMO experimental stations. With the price of foodstuffs (and everything else) going up I think it’s time to alter our lifestyles now before we may be forced to do so within the next decade.
The locavore movement, like the slow food movement, is an idea of our times and should be given some consideration. The first thing to do is to join a local food group as an alternative to the global corporate models where producers and consumers are separated through a chain of processors/manufacturers, shippers and retailers. The development of local food systems is not only about environmental impacts but also the social and economic benefits encouraged through building local relationships. Get to know the name of your butcher, baker, the sales staff at your local farmer market and you will be rewarded with better produce, smiles and savings. What’s not to like about this?
Google your area for existing food groups, join the fray and start eating healthily, and locally whenever possible. If there are no such groups in your area, start one, it’s relatively easy nowadays with the “internets”. Ask friends and relatives if they would be interested in starting a communal vegetable garden, start growing simple crops like tomatoes and runner beans, baby potatoes and carrots. At home, use every container and space available like a disused bathtub, a sunny corner on your balcony, window sills, wooden crates etc…and try your hand at growing food you like.
Another consideration is to raise hens, those free range eggs will provide first class proteins for your breakfast, and a couple of goats if you have a small plot of land (a friend of mine, an Australian, has recently bought 3 acres of scrub land a hundred miles north of Sydney, with four friends, for not much money, and are busy raising hens & sheep, and have planted a huge vegetable patch which will supply quite a few families) for milk and cheese (making goat cheese is quite simple).
During the early 20th century, the demise of the family farm and the growth of corporate farms was experienced through much of the developing world. The corner shops also disappeared and gave way to supermarkets. In the late 60’s and early 70’s with the growth of the back to the land movement there were increasing numbers of small farms selling a variety of products to local communities. But since the 70’s the increase of multi-national food companies has increased the size of not only farms but the overall food system. And that’s our mission: to start up local food networks including community gardens, food co-ops, Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA), farmers’ markets, and seed savers groups. In the next few days I’ll do a piece on how to start a vegetable patch, if you have any questions, post them below.
Tags: Community, Farmer Markets, Health, Local Produce, Locavore Movement, slow food
Posted in Diaries |
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Locavores will have a tough time eating in Dallas. The distances in Texas - if I were to eat what is in a 100-mile radius, my diet would be severely restricted. No bread, no pasta, no corn. I could eat sorghum, and drink milk, and there are a variety of cheeses produced locally. I can eat what I grow at home - tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash - and peaches from Parker County, but forget any grain products!
There are commercial fish farms (catfish) in Oklahoma, but local lakes and streams don’t have enough fish to feed many people, and I never have been skilful enough to catch enough crawfish (when there has been enough rain to keep the streams full through early summer) to feed more than one or two people!
What IS grown in a 100-mile radius of where I live? Concrete, asphalt, and cotton…
We do have community gardens - 12 miles away from me close to downtown. But, if I try to be a real locavore, I’d have to spend extra $ for vitamins and supplements to prevent deficiencies.
But, I do the best I can to eat locally.
Buffalo. Or at least there used to be a buffalo rancher down close to the Texas-Oklahoma border. I believe he passed away a year ago but, if I’m not mistaken, his business was taken over by his sons or someone.
Here, according to one of the people I buy buffalo from, it’s against federal law to do all the things to them they do to cattle. I don’t think that’s true for most buffalo in the country, but it’s true here. And it shows in the quality. This is the real stuff.
There’s also one to the west of me, but I think he’s too far north for you.
Let me look around and see what I can find out.
I’m fortunate to be surrounded by berry farms and GOATS! and pecan — wait a minute. There’s an incredible pecan place down by McAlester which should be pretty close to you. I know you go straight down Indian Nations turnpike to get to Dallas, and Indian Nations turnpike goes right by McAlester and, by then, you might as well be in Texas.
There’s a ton of people doing strange things in southern Oklahoma - I only really know about the stuff in the southeastern part, but I’m sure there’s stuff going on south of Norman (because of University of Oklahoma.
I’ll nose around and see what I can find out.
Mwalla: you can buy buffalo from the Comanche tribe. They’re located south of Oklahoma City and are members of the InterTribal Bison Cooperative, which means they’re free range and it’s against fed law, etc.
Belle Starr in Eufaula is also fairly close to Dallas, but that’s the one where the owner died unexpected a year or so ago. Now, they *were* members of InterTribal Bison, but it’s a bit unclear what’s going on with them now.
And I can testify to Bryant Pecans. Omg, amazing pecans. Now, I usually buy my pecans locally because people will go out and pick them and take them to a local food mart (not a grocery) to make a few extra bucks.
But if you don’t have access to any stores like that, Bryant rocks.
As for the farmed catfish, um, ick!
My life would be perfect if anchovies were local.
Alas …
Well, I’m in luck. Within 100 miles I’ve got apples, pears, hazelnuts, wine, Pacific fish, the Tillamook cheese factory, peas, beans, several kinds of berries, cherries, beef, pork, wine both red and white, hops, barley…
Everything but wheat and coffee. I would miss the wheat and coffee.
I buy my coffee from Fair Trade, and I’d die if there was no bread!
Ugh. phenomenol.
We have berries here - in fact, the Strawberry Festival was last weekend, and we have tons of pick your own blueberry farms.
And we have phenomenal peaches - the crops got wiped out the last couple of years due to late frosts, but it’s looking good for this year.
Apples, though? No such luck. Yes, we have crab apples - I planted a couple of crap apple trees out front, in fact - but no real apples.
Believe it or not, we have wineries, too.
One of my students used to work at one of the wineries. 
He liked that job!
We’re about a century away from producing wine in Eire, if that.
It’s my understanding horrible weather is one of the requirements for growing grapes — hideously hot summers and a good dose of freezing in the winter.
Of course, that could be my imagination at work.
I don’t think hard freezes are that good for wine grapes, but yes, wet winters, hot dry summers, slopes, excellent drainage–all winemaking requirements.
It’s the odd circumstance of our dry season here in the Willamette Valley that makes this otherwise fairly dreary climate a good place for cabernet sauvignon grapes. Or, so they told me at the one winery tour I’ve been on.
Not right, by a mile. Grape varieties need torrid summers, yes, but lenient winters too.