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EAT LOCAL
It tastes better |
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WHAT IS LOCAL?
Local sources of food can be a great way to reduce your carbon footprint and to eat well. The food is fresh and you can actually meet the people who grow it for you. John Cloud recently wrote an article for Time Magazine, Eating Better Than Organic and extolled the following:
"My favorite definition of local comes from Columbia's Gussow, a reporter for Time in the 1950s who went on to become a local-eating pioneer. For 25 years, Gussow has lectured on the environmental (and culinary) disadvantages of relying on a global food supply. Her most oft-quoted statistic is that shipping a strawberry from California to New York requires 435 calories of fossil fuel but provides the eater with only 5 calories of nutrition. In her memoir, Gussow offers this rather poetic meaning of local: "Within a day's leisurely drive of our homes. [This] distance is entirely arbitrary. But then, so was the decision made by others long ago that we ought to have produce from all around the world."
There are many great books and articles on the issue of food and energy:
Animal Vegetable Miracle: A Year of Food Life
by Barbara Kingsolver, with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver
Kingsolver's description of her book:
"Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, this book (released May 2007) tells the story of how our family was changed by one year of deliberately eating food produced in the place where we live. Barbara wrote the central narrative; Steven's sidebars dig deeper into various aspects of food-production science and industry; Camille's brief essays offer a nineteen-year-old's perspective on the local-food project, plus nutritional information, meal plans and recipes."
By author Michael Pollan:
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
"Pollan proposes a new (and very old) answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. By urging us to once again eat food, he challenges the prevailing nutrient-by-nutrient approach -- what he calls nutritionism -- and proposes an alternative way of eating that is informed by the traditions and ecology of real, well-grown, unprocessed food. Our personal health, he argues, cannot be divorced from the health of the food chains of which we are part.
In Defense of Food shows us how, despite the daunting dietary landscape Americans confront in the modern supermarket, we can escape the Western diet and, by doing so, most of the chronic diseases that diet causes. We can relearn which foods are healthy, develop simple ways to moderate our appetites, and return eating to its proper context -- out of the car and back to the table. Michael Pollan's bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating."
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
"What’s at stake in our eating choices is not only our own and our children’s health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on earth.
In this groundbreaking book, one of America’s most fascinating, original, and elegant writers turns his own omnivorous mind to the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. To find out, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us—industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves—from the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating. His absorbing narrative takes us from Iowa cornfields to food-science laboratories, from feedlots and fast-food restaurants to organic farms and hunting grounds, always emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the handful of plant and animal species we depend on. Each time Pollan sits down to a meal, he deploys his unique blend of personal and investigative journalism to trace the origins of everything consumed, revealing what we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods and flavors reflects our evolutionary inheritance.
The surprising answers Pollan offers to the simple question posed by this book have profound political, economic, psychological, and even moral implications for all of us. Beautifully written and thrillingly argued, The Omnivore’s Dilemma promises to change the way we think about the politics and pleasure of eating. For anyone who reads it, dinner will never again look, or taste, quite the same."
Mark Bittman, New York Times food columnist, writes about meat consumption and its ramifications, and speaks on the topic at a symposium.
Some resources that might help you find a farm or local food source near you:
http://www.reapfoodgroup.org/atlas/
http://www.savorwisconsin.com/
Fort Atkinson Farmers' Market
Spend a morning downtown shopping, enjoying the riverwalk and picking up fresh produce, plants and flowers, home-grown treats and arts and crafts. Some exciting new products vendors will be selling this year including: strawberries, gulf shrimp and other seafoods, beautiful plants & flowers and much more. The weekly farmers' market will officially run from 8am to noon on Saturdays from May 31st to the end of September. Parking Lot Across From Post Office 920-563-3210 www.fortfarmersmarket.com www.fortchamber.com
OTHER LOCAL FARMERS MARKETS: are listed in the Farm Fresh Atlas.
EAT LOCAL CHALLENGE - await news of the 2009 challenge
First Lady Doyle announced the Wisconsin “Eat Local” Challenge in for September of 2007. Along with a statewide coalition of farmers and grassroots organizations, she made the challenge to increase sales of local food. The Wisconsin “Eat Local” challenge encouraged consumers to spend 10 percent of their food budget on local food for ten days, Sept. 14 – 23, 2007.
The purpose of the challenge is to raise consumer awareness of the advantages of local food, including quality, freshness and variety. The goal is to create an annual event that will grow. Information gained from the challenge will help local food growers and sellers better serve consumers. For a directory of local food distributors, go to SavorWisconsin.com and search by region, product or business; you can also link to the Eat Local challenge site.
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