Assets and Liabilities

Each of us has assets and liabilities when it comes to implementing a 100-mile diet, or any other local diet. I'll brainstorm a little in this post. I'll mark where we fall with ****

Climate-----------
Gold Star: a mild climate to grow food nearly year round, enough rain or other water.
Silver Star: temperate climate, rain or irrigation water. ****
Challenges: harsh climate, northern plains, hot southern desert, drought.

You will have to work a lot harder in a harsh climate, both to grow food yourself, and to find local food others have grown. Northern climates should be able to offer local pastured livestock; most wheat in this country is grown in the Dakotas and Montana (the problem is getting the farmer to sell it to you).

Residence-------
Gold Star: Live on a farm or small acreage; preferably owned by you.
Silver Star: Own a house on a lot in city, suburbs, or near town. ****
Challenges: Live in an apartment. It is even more of a challenge if that apartment is in a large city.

But the challenge of city apartment living is not insurmountable. Alisa Smith and James McKinnon started their 100-mile diet, described in their book "Plenty", living in an apartment in Vancouver B.C., and made it work.

Some cities have public gardens that you can reserve a space in. Some apartments have balconies that you can put some potted plants on. Many cities are served by CSAs that truck their produce into the city for their customers. You'll have to dig around. If you live in a huge place like Chicago or New York City, you may have to make your circle a little bigger (maybe 200 miles) to get along. The Hudson Valley north of NYC, for example, does have a tremendous number of CSAs and organic farms.

Cooking Skills----
Gold star: Enjoy cooking, have had some experience, willing to learn new tricks. ****
Silver star: Haven't cooked much, too busy, don't know how.
Challenges: Don't cook, don't intend to learn, nobody in my family cooks or is interested.

If you don't cook, don't intend to learn, and nobody else in your household intends to learn, then the 100-mile diet is not for you. Maybe somebody else can figure out a solution for people in this situation.

If you fall in the Silver Star category, and are willing to work at it, you can do just fine. Get some good cookbooks, organize the work, for instance, by spending a few hours on the weekends cooking for the week, or figure out meals you can make from local ingredients without a lot of preparation time. Get together with a friend who DOES cook, and learn from him or her.

If you live in the mild climate, you won't need to put much food away; you can go with whatever's available. The harsher the winters, the more you need to learn to freeze, can, dry, and pickle summer produce to get along.

Budget-------
Gold Star: Sufficient income to buy better food, or believe that improved health is worth spending a little more. ****
Silver Star: Cost is some concern, but health and other concerns are also important, so we can cope with it.
Challenge: Just barely have enough to buy the cheapest food; reliant on food banks; live in a dormitory or institution.

Americans spend a smaller percentage of their take-home pay on food than any country in the world, and less than at any time since the founding of the Republic. The U.S. is hooked on cheap food, really cheap food. And what we get for that, is..... really cheap food. Cosmetically appealing, flavorless produce; prepared food with too much sugar, fat, salt, preservatives, chemicals, etc., meat from a broken CAFO system (Confined Animal Feeding Operation) which puts us at risk of E. coli and a multitude of food-borne diseases and recalls; it just goes on and on.

The topic of saving money with local eating is worth a post in itself, which I will try to write in the next few weeks. But for starters, most of us spend an unconscionable amount of money on fast food, junk food, fancy coffee drinks, sodas, vending machines, and prepared foods. Include with that restaurants or take-out several to many times per week. If you were to add up all that you spend on various sources of food (a GOOD EXERCISE, by the way), that would give you a fair baseline to compare for local eating.

When you buy local food, you are buying FOOD. Not packaging, not advertising, not long-distance transportation, not massive distribution chains. FOOD. The money goes directly or nearly directly to the farmers and producers. That pastured beef you buy from your neighbor costs a little more a pound, but you can be sure it is clean, safe, tasty, and raised without cruelty. Anyway, more on this topic later.

Those in dormitories or group living facilities probably can't do much more than appeal to the kitchens and cooks there to buy more local food.

Geography-------
Gold Star: Have an ocean coast in your 100-mile circle (seafood, salt, seaweeds, yum!); have a variety of ecozones in your circle
for example uplands, river bottom, sunny and shady areas.
Silver Star: Have suitable agricultural land, with or without large variations, in the area. This includes mountain plains, Midwest, southern US, Pacific Coast, New England, in the U.S. ****
Challenges: Live next to toxic waste dump, nuclear plant, coal-fired power plant; polluted air, water, and land. All I can say is: MOVE! That geography is not good for your health.

Given any reasonable geography within your 100 miles, it should not be a limiter.

Family concerns------
Gold Star: Every member of your family is interested, or at least willing to give it a try. ****
Silver Star: One or more family members are set in their ways, or have dietary restrictions of various types, or are "fussy eaters".
Challenges: Having heard about local eating from you or somebody else, at least one family member is dead set against it, and will try to thwart your plans.

It's certainly nice to have everybody on board. But you may be able to bribe those who are a little less willing with extra "exceptions", more than you might otherwise give. Any local food that you eat is better than eating none.

Dietary restrictions could be weight-loss diets, allergy restrictions, celiac disease (wheat/rye/barley intolerance), lactose intolerance (milk), kosher, vegetarian, vegan, or others.

Weight-loss diets can probably be worked with; after all you're eating NO junk food, NO fast food, NO sugary foods, etc. I lost six pounds in the first month, eating whatever I liked.

I have celiac disease, so on the one hand, I'm not used to a wheat-based diet (cereal, sandwiches, pasta, day after day), which is helpful since wheat is one of those hard things to find most places. On the other hand, the alternative flours that I used for gluten-free baking are all out of range. I need to work on it.

Lactose intolerance in the family would mean that person would not eat dairy products, which is fine, because they weren't eating them before.

Kosher food: you just have an extra complication in your supplies, which should not be insurmountable.

For vegetarians, those that eat eggs and dairy do have a challenge, since the grains and beans which are important in the vegetarian diet are hard to find, but I think it is not impossible. The soybean is a staple of the vegetarian diet, usually run through industrial processes, and will be hard to find outside the supermarkets. Once you find your soybeans, preparing them is tedious (such as soy milk or tofu) but not impossible.

Vegans are probably in the worst situation, in our present food situation, for local eating. The soybean concerns for vegetarians are even worse for vegans, since they have few other sources of protein. For Northern Colorado 100-milers, nuts are not grown commercially in this area (though sunflowers are), eliminating another valuable protein source. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but I think you'd have to prepare yourself with extra research finding food sources in order to succeed.

Children, especially of the "picky eater" variety, can be a problem. You know your children best. Some children will respond to a challenge, and want to save the planet; it's gratifying to see how aware many young people are now. With other children, you will need to move very slowly, offering them better food choices but not pushing hard enough to build up resistance. You may end up for a time fixing extra food for the picky one. Eventually, if the rest of the family is eating and obviously enjoying the healthy foods, the picky one will come along.

Perhaps some family members will cheat behind your back: get that cola, candy bar, greaseburger, bag of potato chips. Nothing really to do about it. Just put the healthy foods on the table.
Again, you know your family situation best.

You could help bring reluctant family members on board with trips to the farms or farmers markets where you're buying the food. You can talk to the farmers, see the animals and maybe pet them, maybe even pet the vegetables as they sit out there in their home of dirt.

Some adults will respond well to facts and figures; negotiating skills may be required for some. You just have to play it by ear. My husband was initially a little reluctant, but willing to try it. After a month, he finds he really loves the foods we're eating now, much more flavorful and interesting than before.

I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who have successfully coped with a variety of challenges, some I haven't thought of, and certainly many solutions I haven't thought of. I encourage you to share with us.

So, What Are We Eating?

When I tell people that we are eating a 100-mile diet, I sometimes get a mild form of disbelief. I say, yes, we are eating some things that I have on hand, because it is disrespectful to throw away food that you have because it didn't grow around here. I'm afraid some people think that we are eating only what we have on hand, and sometime in the future will be reduced to eating tree bark and squirrels that we shoot in the yard. Well, it just isn't so.

We've been on this diet nearly four weeks now, and have eaten up all the semi-perishable food, such as commercial dairy products and vegetables and non-local fruits. My husband's favorite chef salad has morphed over these weeks.

Leaf lettuce --- > escarole and Napa from Cresset Farm
Commercial carrots ---- > Cresset Farm carrots
Commercial tomatoes ---- > omit, mostly
Green peppers, Cresset all the way (we've been blessed with peppers this year)
Applewood Farms organic sliced turkey ---- > local chicken breast or turkey
Applewood Farms pepperoni ---- > local sausage, finely sliced
Commercial grated cheese ---- > Windsor Dairy cheddar or fresh Mozzarella
Commercial salad dressings ---- > homemade dressings

He has gone from a near-total non-local salad to a totally-local salad, an easy step at a time. I will write a later post on homemade salad dressings.

MEATS

I am using some meat from my freezer, before buying very much local meat, but it is not for lack of excellent local supplies. It is very easy to find local beef (Cresset Farm, Rocky Plains, and other growers). Local lamb is also available from many sources. Rocky Plains has local pastured pork from Kersey (a little east of Greeley). Northern Colorado Poultry has chickens raised in Nunn. Eastern Plains Natural Food Coop has beautiful pastured heritage turkeys (one of them graced our Thanksgiving table). You can see the links for these suppliers in the sidebar, and there are many others.

DAIRY

Windsor Dairy is a godsend for us; we get fresh milk, and buy a variety of cheeses, cottage cheese, and heavy cream (too good to believe). I use the fresh milk and make my own yogurt and kefir (both VERY easy). There are a number of other small local dairies about, not hard to find. Cresset Farm runs a seasonal dairy, starting up again in the spring.


MUSHROOMS

Hazel Dell, west of Windsor, grows fresh mushrooms: shiitakes, portobellos, oyster mushrooms and others. So we've had stuffed mushrooms, sauteed mushrooms, mushroom sauce for pasta, mushrooms in soups, and I'm just getting started.

VEGETABLES

I have Cresset Farm CSA summer and winter vegetable shares each year. Cresset is sold out for winter. The supply of seasonal vegetables is so good that I pass some along to friends. There are a number of other excellent CSAs in our area, and all across the country. You can find them at the Local Harvest website. Check out Grant's Family Farm; they sell their organic produce in local stores, as well as summer and winter vegetable shares. Once May comes, farmer's markets are available in every town.

We have some frozen peas and lima beans left in the freezer, and will gradually be using them. Next year, I'm going to buy a bushel of local peas!!!

Today I found some heirloom tomatoes, raised in Nunn (greenhouse, I'm sure, this time of year). I will occasionally buy these local tomatoes, though tomatoes are really a summer fruit.

FRUITS

Although there are no commercial fruit growers in our area, nearly every yard has some fruit trees, and if yours doesn't, you can plant them. One little apple tree can provide you with 200 to 500 lbs, of apples per year, after a few years growth. In this area we can grow plums, peaches (in a north-facing area), apples, table grapes, cherries, gooseberries, serviceberries, rhubarb, and loads more.

My cabinets are filled with applesauce and dried fruits, and the garage has the last 100 pounds from our trees. In August you can find chokecherries and wild plums growing along all the river and stream courses in our area. Wild plums, nicely ripe, are delicious for fresh eating. Chokecherries should be cooked into jelly, since the seeds are mildly poisonous raw.

It's a bit late this year, but next fall, look around your neighboorhood. I'd be surprised if you couldn't find a dozen neglected fruit trees, dropping their fruits onto the grass and sidewalk. Just stop and ask the owners if you can pick. They'll probably try to give you a hug, for saving them the trouble.

GRAINS AND BEANS

These are the troublesome items, which I'm still working on. Lots of grains and beans are grown in our area, but they mostly disappear off into the commodity market, and show up anonymous in markets all over the country. In this case, I've been using what we have in the pantry.

Since I have celiac disease, we don't have any wheat products in stock, but I have several kinds of rice, and alternative flours such as teff, tapioca, and amaranth. After a while, these items will be gone. I'm hoping to find a local supply for some grains and beans before that time.

What I expect to find: wheat (though not for me), oats, barley (plenty is grown for the microbrewers), spelt, amaranth, quinoa, millet, pinto beans and other dried beans. As a local market develops, more local farmers will see the considerable advantages of selling a premium product direct to consumers or a consumer buying coop. So stay tuned.

HERBS, SPICES AND TEAS

Coffee: the universal exception for most people, and for Jim also.

Tea: I've got lots on hand, and will be using it up slowly. When it's gone, then what? An exception? (I've still got a few esxceptions I haven't specified.)

Spices: some just won't grow here no matter what, they are tropical trees and vines. Barbara Kingsolver (in "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle") made "spices" her exception; her husband's was "coffee", her daughter's was "dried fruit", and they did eat non-local grains, such as rice. I haven't decided.

Herbs: I have some herbs growing in the yard, and plan to get some in pots for the house, such as rosemary. Most herbs grow here just fine.

Salt: I have a lot of salt on hand, and will be using it. Salt is not produced in Colorado; the closest is Utah. When I run out of our stock, I will buy it, as an exception. Salt has been traded among people way back into paleolithic times, so I don't feel bad about it.

Baking soda: sodium bicarbonate; practically the whole world's supply comes from south-central Wyoming. Unlike salt, which has marvelous variations depending on where it came from, baking soda is just the same everywhere; it's a chemical, a cleaning agent, a tooth-brushing powder, and a leavening agent. So I use it, not counting it as food.

SWEETENERS

Honey is available locally in every part of the country. Just look for roadside signs. Sugar, no go unless you have a sugar cane field across the road.

OUR RESULTS -------------------

I am keeping a food diary. Approximately half (by number) of the items we eat now are local, but in terms or weight or quantity it is easily 85%, and going for 90%. Most of the non-local items are teas, salt, spices, and occasional grains or beans. I have not knowingly bought any non-local food. We have certainly not gone hungry, and in fact are eating a healthier and more satisfying diet than before. I am doing more cooking.

A few favorite dishes:

Chicken soup: Make broth with chicken backs, bones, etc. Strain the broth, pick the meat off the bones. Cut up one local sausage link. Clean and cut up leeks (Cresset Farm), fingerling potatoes (Cresset or Grants Farm), sweet potato (Cresset Farm or Monroe), herbs to taste (local or not), salt and pepper. A delicious hearty soup.

Thanksgiving Dinner: Local heritage turkey, mashed potatoes with local milk and butter, boiled local sweet potatoes, gravy made with broth and non-local rice flour, frozen peas (yes, not local, on hand). Dessert was pumpkin pie from a Cresset Farm pumpkin, local honey, milk, and eggs, baked in a gluten-free pie shell (non-local flours, but local lard), and topped off with local heavy cream.

Caprese Salad: Slice and chop local mozzarella, slice and chop local fresh tomatoes, and mix together. Sprinkle on (non-local, exception) olive oil and herbs. Yum. This plus a local beef patty and green vegetable is a meal.

Spiced apples: Cut up local apples (for us, our own apples). Put in saucepan with a little butter and (non-local, on hand) spices: cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cardamon. Stew gently for about 10 minutes. Top with local heavy cream. All the flavor of apple pie with about 1/10th the work and time.

--I'll report each month on what we're eating, and on the progress I have made in figuring out some of the more difficult items.

Make the Road by Walking

Recently I came across this famous line by Spanish poet Antonio Machado.

Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.

My translation:
Traveller, there is no road,
one makes the road by walking.

We are pioneering local eating, walking where there is no road, making the road by walking it. When we look for, ask for, and buy local food, we are sending a powerful message. If enough of us do it, the message goes out to existing farmers sick to death of losing money in commodity agriculture; the message goes out to young people who want to farm but can't see how to make a living at it.

It's a collaboration. More demand for local food makes for more local suppliers. More local suppliers makes it easier for customers to find local food. It's a virtuous circle, unwinding the vicious circle of no demand for local food, so farmers must sell into the commodity market, often making pennies on the dollar, going into debt, then selling out to corporations or developers.

Let's not wait until we are in an emergency situation. As Ursula of Cresset Community Farm told me recently, "We need to grow farmers."

With Peak Oil having ever greater effects on the cost of everything related to petroleum, we will NEED more local suppliers of food if we want to eat. About 20% of the cost of supermarket food is the transportation from field to factory to warehouse to store. That does not even count the fuel for the tractors, the petrochemicals in the fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides.
The time is coming when "conventional" agriculture will be more expensive than organic farming.

Corporate megafarms are far less efficient in food produced per acre in crop, not even counting the environmental or petroleum costs, though megafarms are far more efficient in labor costs. The most efficient food-growing technique in the world in terms of product per acre is the home garden, closely followed by small intensively-farmed plots. The most efficient way to produce meat is pastured; feedlots are an antiquated dinosaur method of producing meat, based on the incredible cheapness of fossil fuel in the 20th century. They require huge amounts of corn and soybeans, and huge amounts of petroleum to produce them and bring them to the cattle, and producing huge amounts of animal waste which becomes a pollutant rather than a fertilizer. I will go into this subject more in a future post.

Jim and I are walking the road we want to make. By using our existing stock, it gives us time to research and find suppliers of the things we will need. After using up all of our perishable foods, our meals are more than half local food, sometimes nearly all, except for salt.

Please join us on this road that we are making by walking.

Be Thankful for Local Food

Thanks to Alisa Smith and James McKinnon at 100 Mile Diet for allowing me to use their cute graphic. Their recently-published book "Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally" was one of my inspirations for our 100-mile diet. It's a fun read too.

Give thanks for your local food by featuring local food in your Thanksgiving feast. Within our 100-mile circle, we can find turkey, potatoes, sweet potatoes, lots of other hardy vegetables, pumpkin (remember, you CAN eat your pumpkin) pie, and cream to put on it. And we have apples from our trees, sitting in our garage, for baked apples, applesauce, and a myriad other dishes.

How Can You Find Local Food?

Don't expect to find very much local food at your supermarket.  You can find 40,000-60,000 items from every corner of the world.  Most of them are identified only by country of origin, if that.  Lists of ingredients often include long chemical names whose sources do not need to be revealed (melamine, anyone?).  Unless you live in a big produce area such as California, you will have a hard time finding local produce, even when it is in season.  You can ask the produce manager.  The more we ask them for local food, the more likely it is that we will get it.  

So, we have the same question: how can you find local food?

1. Start at home.  

--What do you grow in your yard?  Apple trees? Berry bushes?
--Do you have a garden? Can you have a garden?
--Can you keep bees (most cities allow them)?
--Can you keep chickens?  A few hens are a pleasant addition to your yard.  They eat vegetable scraps and create fertilizer and eggs.  

If you live in an apartment, you may still be able to grow a few pots of herbs or tomatoes on your patio.  Perhaps you can find a community garden nearby where you can have a small plot of your own.

The usual growing season is over for 2007, but you can start to plan for next year.  Consider it a Victory Garden--victory in the fight for local, flavorful, inexpensive food for your family.  If you have a garden, you can look into season extenders, cold frames, hoop houses, etc., that will allow you to harvest vegetables earlier and later than usual.  Eliot Coleman's book Four Season Gardening is a good reference.

2. Join a CSA

CSA means Community Supported Agriculture.  You pay the farmers for a share of vegetables at the beginning of the season, and get a weekly bag or box of freshly picked local produce.  Some CSA sell milk, meat, honey, fruit, bread, jellies, or other local products as well.  CSAs are the fastest growing form of agriculture in the U.S. today, and no wonder!  The farmers get to keep the entire sales price of the share--nothing to middlemen, factories, stores, etc. The customer gets fresh local produce, and gets to know the people who grow their food.

Some CSAs offer working or barter memberships, where you contribute your labor to the farm in return for a reduced-price or free vegetable share.

In the past decade or so, thousands of new CSAs have sprung up all over the country.  To find one near you, look in the Local Harvest website:
          http://www.localharvest.org
and enter your own state or zip code.  You'll be astonished.
 
3. Farmers Markets

You can also find a multitude of farmers markets in every state in the union. You can generally find an even wider selection of edibles at markets which have stalls or tables from many local growers and producers.  In some areas of the country, farmers markets run year around.  Here in Colorado, they're mostly done in October.  

------a brief interruption-------

A CSA and/or farmers markets can provide you with wonderful local
produce in season, but most of us don't live in perpetual summer. Just as our grandmothers did, we can preserve the summer's bounty for winter. Fruits and vegetables can be dried, canned, pickled, or frozen. The techniques are simple, the equipment is not expensive. The easiest of all: Many hardier vegetables can be kept in a cool cellar or garage, where they won't freeze, for months.

-------------back to our regular program--------------

4. Find and support local farms

You can use the Local Harvest website, or a number of other similar sites, to find farmers in your area who are raising animals for meat or eggs. Perhaps you have local orchards that sell to the public. There are beekeepers everywhere to supply you with local honey.

You can link up with other people in your area who are interested in local food, and share information about suppliers. You could put together a buying coop for bulk purchases, such as grain.


Grains and Beans

In most parts of the country, grains and beans will be the most difficult foodstuffs to buy locally. Practically all of then are sold through the commodity system, giving the farmer a return of just pennies on the dollar of supermarket sales. Most commodity farmers make ends meet with government subsidies, mainly for wheat, corn and soybeans. Large corporations are calling the shots, and making the profits, on this commerce.

We can turn this around, supporting small local farmers, but only if we work together. Small farmers need to know that there will be a solid market for their grains, flours and beans, in order to invest in the processing machinery and mills.

A final note: Does it make sense to start a 100-Mile diet in November? For us it did. We have a lot of stored food: frozen, canned, and staples. We also have a CSA membership which will give us vegetables until March. I quickly found several good sources of meat, poultry, dairy products and eggs. And we have fruit trees in our yard, and five boxes of our apples in the garage.

Whether or not you are ready to start your 100-mile diet now, you can start thinking about what you might do to prepare for it. Perhaps you want to start in June, with a CSA, buying food at the farmers markets and preserving it. I first thought about local eating last year; it took me nearly a year to decide to jump in and do it. Perhaps you need to prepare your spouse and children for the inevitable changes. You will be doing more cooking.

And a fair warning: once you have really started eating local food, you may lose your appetite for the tasteless tired produce and fruit you were eating before; you may lose your yearnings for junk food; you may decide to drive past the burger palace and go home for a satisfying meal. It's an adventure!

You Can Make Your Own Rules

One nice thing about choosing to eat a local diet is that you can make your own rules (such a deal...).  Practically anything that you do to eat more local food is good for the planet, so you can decide what works for you and your family.
You can start gonzo hard-core by picking a small area and being strict.  Or you can choose to cook one completely-local meal a week.  Whatever works for you.

Choose the area:

• 100-mile radius circle (or 50, or 200; you choose)
  
• Your whole state (in my case Colorado); makes label reading easier
• If you live in a little state, put several states together
• Your bioregion, such as the watershed for your local river, or some other land feature

You can have exceptions:

• We decided to pick 5 exceptions each; my first is olive oil.  My husband's first two are Alaskan salmon and fair-trade coffee.  
  
• Or you can be hard-core and not allow any exceptions
• However, it is not fair to pick an exception, stock up to the gills on it, then trade it out for another one; you aren't really doing any good that way.
• We will use food that we have on hand (and since I'm such a packrat, that's a lot of food).  I don't feel it's ethical to throw away food that I already own.  The place to intercept the non-local food is when you are buying it.
• If you pick too broad an exception, such as "everything made with grains", you will probably find that you are eating commodity grain-based food from all over the place, to the exclusion of local fruits and vegetables.  Do yourself and the planet a favor by being specific: example: brown rice from California.

Choose how much of your eating is local:

• If we are invited to someone's house, we will gratefully eat what is put in front of us, without carping about its source.
• We allow ourselves one restaurant meal per week, without locality restrictions.  (You could choose none, or more, or only certain kinds of restaurants....)
• Other than that, we are eating local (and on-hand) food all other meals of the week.  You could choose to eat local for one meal a day, one meal a week (off to a slow start), or whatever works for you.  For us this includes snacks.
• If we are traveling away from our area, we will try to eat local food of the area we are visiting, but not make a big deal out of it.  This does not happen often.  If we are away from the house for lunch, we will be bringing our own food with us, instead of being tempted to stop at the fast-food haven or the minimart for snacks.

Why Would We Do This?

I, and others I know, are getting the strong feeling that the time for dithering and wringing our hands is over.  It is time to do something meaningful to reduce our energy footprint and thereby reduce the
emissions leading to global warming.  

I recently read the book Plenty by Alisa Smith and James McKinnon, who decided to eat in a 100-mile radius circle of their home in Vancouver, BC,
Canada.  Their website is   http://100milediet.org/home/

100-mile eating can do the following:

•  reduce the amount of petroleum needed to get your food on your plate (significant)
•  thereby making a substantial difference in emissions (more than compact fluorescents, for sure)
• help you get to know the people who grow, raise, or catch your food
•  thereby avoiding GMOs, frankenfoods, melamine in your food, and lots of other industrial pollutants and irradiation
•  totally stop you eating FAST FOOD and chain restaurant fare
•  increase your intake of fruits and vegetables and reduce your intake of  processed, anonymous foods
• get you in touch with the seasons and your local foodshed
• support local farmers and help them resist suburban development
• stop sending your food dollars overseas; stop supporting mega-corporations who want to control food as a commodity
• prepare your region (and yourself) so that your residents have at least half a chance to feed themselves when things get bad
  

• 
  

A New Way for a New Year

November 1 is the Celtic New Year.  It seems like a good time to start a new way of eating.  

Local eating is a way for each of us to reconnect with our land, with the small farmers and growers that are our neighbors.  It is a way for each us to make a significant impact on climate change and peak oil.  It is a way to put food on our plates which is fresher and better tasting, and is free of sprays, waxes, fungicides, irradiation, trans fats, and all the other technological miseries of the commodity food industries.  

I will be posting our experiences, our food choices, a source reference for others in Northern Colorado, recipes for using and preserving locally-available foods, and whatever comes to mind as we continue our year-long journey in our own backyard.

---Lynnet