Mid-week reading: How far does your food travel?
The Green Guide has an article in their Sept/Oct issue entitled "Local or Organic? I'll take both." It's good reading, talking about the challenges of finding local, organic food, the expected impact of Walmart's entrance into the organic market, and what you yourself can do. They link to an article in the Honolulu Weekly about eating only organic, local foods in Hawaii -- much more difficult than I would have thought!
Here's an article from the Philadelphia City Paper also talking about eating locally: There's No Plate Like Home. It intersperses the writer's own experience with a lot of information, interviews, etc. I really enjoyed the piece.
FoodRoutes.org encourages people to "Buy Fresh. Buy Local." There's information for each state on farms, farmer's markets, etc, to help you connect with local producers. EatWild.com does something very similar for grassfed meat, eggs, and dairy -- and if you're an omnivore and haven't tried grassfed meat yet, I strongly encourage you to do so. Very, very, very tasty. We have some lamb kabob meat from Shepherd's Lamb marinating in our refrigerator right now, and I'm looking forward to dinner.
(Speaking of grass-fed meats, though, it looks like the authenticity of the term is at risk; read this for more information and suggested action.)
I struggle with eating locally; with two small kids who love bananas year-round it can be difficult to eat locally and in-season. But we do the best we can. Dinner tonight is the abovementioned lamb, eggplant, and zucchini kabobs; the main ingredients are all local, of course, but the marinade is only partially so (it calls for olive oil and lime juice, neither of which come from around here). We'll have local salad, but the salad dressing's from a processing plant somewhere. Local bread, with local honey. Fresh Colorado peaches for dessert -- not "within 100 miles" local, but pretty close regardless. But it's an ongoing struggle. We feed our chickens local, organic grain, and once they start laying (within a month or so) we'll have local organic eggs. (Well, we already buy local organic eggs -- but these will be even MORE local. :) We get all our meat direct from local farmers, but haven't yet found a source for affordable dairy. Cheese, milk, and butter are mostly "from Rocky Mountain pastures", but that's not the same as knowing the farmer. All our vegetables and much of our fruit are from the farmer's market -- but then there are things like bananas, plums, lemons, limes, oranges, all of which we like to eat occasionally and none of which grow nearby. Like I said, it's an ongoing effort, but I do think it's good to be mindful of what we're eating and where it comes from. We are continually trying to eat more locally and have more connection to the people who produce the food we eat.
Oh, and it's green chile season, so the whole town smells of roasting chiles. Yum! Here's an article from Ann Arbor talking about green chile; if you've been in New Mexico in September, you'll identify with the author's experience.