Native sun

Last fall, I read an article in Gourmet where a guy challenged himself & his family to only eat food grown within 150 miles of his house for an entire year. Oh, and by the way, I think he lived in Vermont or some other less hospitable climate than my luxurious California.

One of the writer's main points in doing so was environmental - eating conventionally (read: non-organic) locally grown foods has less impact on the environment than organic foods grown at a distance. That made a lot of sense - most of our veggies and foods are water, and well, water is kinda heavy.

After reading that article, I started doing things in the grocery store I never really thought about before - I looked at where it was grown. Peaches may have been ripe in Chile a few months ago, but are they actually worth eating? And all those red(ish) strawberries signaling nice weather somewhere in Mexico, but eating one can never compare with the ones at the farmer's market you can smell from 100 paces.

I found a couple of links on various food sites which led me to the Eat Local Challenge that's encouraging people to try to eat "locally" for the month of May. My nearby farmer's market opens tomorrow morning, and I plan to be there. I'm lucky to live in a place with so much diversity, so many local and organic options. I'm incredibly lucky to work for a place that provides more organic and sustainably farmed food than you can shake a breadstick at.

Anyway, my goal for the month is to buy at least 75% of my fruit & vegetable produce from local sources. I've also been wanting to make some jam using local fruit, so I'll add that as a goal, too. I'll update my results as the month goes on, and let me know if you also decide to think more "locally."