photo by Brian Glanz
My husband & I opted in to our local 100 Mile Diet from Sustainable Ballard. For the month of August, 2007 we have pledged that 75% of our diet will be locally produced foods. We know we can't do 100% because of things like tea, coffee, rice, and spices, but so far we are doing well with 75%.
I didn't think we would have any problem with this for two reasons: first, we're vegetarians and our diet is already primarily dependent on foods which are much better when they're local and fresh. Second, since we've been married we've made a good effort to support local farmers; the Ithaca Farmers' Market started it all. We started out together in Ithaca where we had that home grown awareness all around us, and it has gotten even easier since moving to Seattle. We love this city with so many neighborhood farmers' markets, some of them running year-round.
To support this pledge, everything I blog in the rest of this month will be locally focused! These Lobster Mushrooms that my husband photographed are just one great example of some amazing ingredients available when you're eating local. You just have to look right under your nose. I can't wait till I can buy them next time at the Ballard Sunday Farmers' Market!
2 comments:
Can I admit how hard this was at the neighborhood fruit stand today? The stand is walking distance from our home in Ballard (in Seattle), and they are known for featuring local items. When we started asking questions about the origins of various things, though, we found for example that the berries are from Oregon. That's pretty well local, but it isn't within 100 miles.
As an example, for berries there are a great many of equal quality grown within 100 miles of us. When we meet farmers in our local markets, which we often do, they're from within 100 miles and we support them. Still though, we can only spend so much time shopping around, and we walked to this fruit stand to get fresh ingredients for tonight's dinner. Had we gotten in a car or on a bus and shopped around, we might have found a local option, but that would hardly have been a greener solution. For today anyway, we decided Oregon was local enough.
We also bought other items from California (gasp!), lacking a local option in front of us and with our stomachs growling. On the way home we discussed the virtues of an international market for fruits that can't be grown near us without significant energy spending, especially when those fruits are highly nutritional.
We can't say with real precision that we're eating 75% of our food from within 100 miles, but we have found it constructive to keep the numbers in mind. For that matter, we're not sure the world would be a better place if everyone ate a 100% 100-mile diet. No less though, it's a conversation worth having and the conversation continues.
What a great goal! I had no idea you were so into food. And we follow a lot of the same blogs/sites! :D
We'll have to swap recipes/kitchen tips sometime.
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