Life Begins at 30

Announcement: August Eat Local Challenge

"I want to escape the trap that I, like most Americans, have fallen into the last four decades: obtaining nine-tenths of our food from nonlocal sources, with shippers, processors, packagers, retailers, and advertisers gaining three times more income from each dollar of food purchased than do farmers, fishermen, and ranchers.  I want to reduce the distance that my food travels before it reaches my mouth and my mind ..."

- Gary Paul Nabhan, Coming Home to Eat

What if all of our food decisions for a month were based on what was available in our foodshed?  What is it like to eat only what's in season?  What if we all became more aware of where our food really comes from?  What if local businesses got the message that people actually care about where their food comes from because of the sheer number of people asking questions about sourcing?

Life Begins at 30, in association with Locavores, is pleased to bring you the August Eat Local Challenge.  During this August, we challenge you to set some goals that will include eating food that is local to you.  Life Begins at 30 will be hosting a month-long meme along with suggestions for how to do this, and an update of how everyone is doing.

You will be able to design your own Eat Local challenge, noting your level of participation (eat local all day every day, once a week, one big event during the month, etc) and your "exceptions" - those things that aren't local and that you won't be able to live without as long with other specifications.

By taking this challenge, you will be joining a group of bloggers and non-bloggers alike who are willing to make the effort during August to source their food and eat accordingly.

Interested?  Move on to the Nuts and Bolts.

Need more convincing that local is the way to go?  Move on to the Reference Guide.

Not a blogger, but want to participate?  Sign up at Locavores today!

Eating Local: Guidelines to making it work

When the article came out a few weeks ago in the SF Chronicle talking about the August Eat Local Challenge and the Locavores, there was a very good list printed in it that I think bears repeating.

For years I have said "local over organic" which I believe I first read in a piece about Rick Bayless.  This list takes that idea a bit further and I think that it's a great set of guidelines:

You may find yourself confronted with the choice of organic or local. How do the two fit in each other? Here are the Locavores' guidelines:

-- Whenever possible, buy, eat and cook local -- i.e. within the foodshed.

-- If not locally produced, then organic. This choice generally protects the environment and your body from chemicals and hormones.

-- If not organic, then family farm. If it comes down to Kraft versus Cabot (a dairy co-op in Vermont), choose Cabot.

-- If not family farm, then local business. Coffee and wheat products may be difficult. At least support a local coffee-roasting house and local bakery.

-- If not a local business, then go for terroir. Purchase foods that express the region they are grown in and support the local agriculture. If you're buying Brie, by it from Brie, France; if Parmesan cheese, from Parma, Italy.

(Source: SF Chronicle, June 1, 2005)

All you need to know about the Local Food Challenge

(Note:  In this post, I will talk about the mechanics of the Eat Local Challenge for further details, please read the introductory post.)

For the month of August, I would like to invite all bloggers to join me in taking a challenge to eat food local to where you live.  You will be able to build your challenge parameters yourself, and set reachable goals for the month.  Ths goal of this time is to eat as much local food as possible, and to really pay attention to where your food comes from.

Between now and July 31, think about how you would like to participate.  Also, work to find local sources of products that you haven't found before.  Talk to farmers, tap your blog community. 

By Sunday, July 31, post something on your blog saying that you are participating in the Local Food Challenge and spelling out the following:

1.  What's your definition of local for this challenge?

The Locavores are using a 100-mile radius around their home to define local foods.  I will probably be doing the same.  You could define local as anything from within your county to within the state or the United States.

2.  What exemptions will you claim?

There are some things that are a part of your everyday life that will be impossible to source locally.  For instance, I will still be purchasing coffee during the month, but I will continue to drink coffee from Blue Bottle Coffee which at least roasts locally.  I haven't decided on my other exemptions yet, but will spend the month of July working to find reasonable substitutes for products and then making a decision.

3.  What is your personal goal for the month?

You don't have to set your goal at eating every meal locally -- while that is the ideal, we want to be realistic here.  You could set a goal of having each dinner with local products, having one family meal a week, or even hosting one weekend picnic with local foods during the month.

Also feel free to use this post to discuss products you are having trouble finding, and hopefully your readership and the participants in this challenge will both help you find what you need.

Once you have posted, email a link to the post to me, along with a link to the rss feed for your blog (if you have one) and I will announce all of the participants at the beginning of August.  Please put the word ANNOUNCEMENT in the title of your email.

Interested in a "Eat Local Challenge" logo for your site?  Check out this page and use whatever logo suits you.  This is strictly a voluntary thing ... don't feel that you have to use the logo if it doesn't go with your site design.

Throughout the month, I will monitor your posts by RSS feed and post updates of everyone's progress at least once a week.

Also, if you have a moment, please take the time to sign up on the Locavores site so that they have a comprehensive list of who  participated.

If you have any questions about the mechanics of this challenge, please feel free to contact me or post comments here.

Why eat local - I need more info!

Over the past year, I have written and referred to many arguments for eating local.  If you would like more information, here are some references.

I only have a few minutes - what do I read?

Diet for a sustainable planet.  The challenge: Eat locally for a month (You can start practicing now), SF Chronicle

Voting with your fork: Eating local means more for the local economy

Eating local protects us from bioterrorism

I want more!

Coming Home to Eat: the Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods, Gary Paul Nabhan

Eat Here: Homegrown Pleasures in a Global Supermarket, Brian Halweil

Holy Cows and Hog Heaven: The Food Buyer's Guide to Farm Friendly Food, Joel Salatin

Tidbits

"Of the 37 ingredients in chicken nuggets, something like 30 are made, directly or indirectly, from corn."

"The question of where we do our food shopping is an important one. Thinking carefully about where we spend money on food is a large part of eating locally and sustainably.  I know that when I buy produce from Wegman's, for example, that the vegetables may come from anywhere in the world.  Moreover, the farmer who grew the food will have to split any profits with Wegmans, the distributor, the marketer, and the packaging company.  There won't be much left for the farmer."

"First you layer instant mashed potato flakes on the bottom. I use 1/2 a box. Then over that you pour 4 cans of Cream of Mushroom soup. On top of that you do chunks of velveeta. I use an entire brick! Don't you just love the way Velveeta melts? "

Buying Locally Grown Food Protects Us from Bioterrorism

Last December, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson resigned his post.  At the news conference announcing his resignation, Secretary Thompson spoke regarding the possibility of a bioterror attack on the food supply, saying "For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do."

On Monday, during a session at the Association of Food and Drug Officials' annual conference, a federal food safety official said that school lunches are an attractive target for potential bioterrorists.  She noted the vulnerability of three products specifically: milk, spaghetti sauce and egg substitutes.

Consider this:  McDonald's Corporation is the single largest purchaser of potatoes in the U.S. and uses 7% of all U.S.-grown potatoes each year to make french fries and hash browns.  This amounts to 3.2 billion pounds of raw potatoes.  Each of those potatoes is sent through one of only eighteen processing plants in the U.S. to then be distributed to over 13,000 stores across the country.

That means that a strategic bioterrorism hit in only eighteen processing plants could affect millions of pounds of potatoes in every McDonald's throughout our country. 

I am not talking about this to just bring up gloom and doom statistics.  When we are talking about terrorism, and contamination of our food, it is easy to feel completely hopeless about the situation.  Eating locally grown foods with only a few steps from farm to table is a direct combatant to intentional food contamination.

Who is going to contaminate the garden of the school children at the Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School participating in the Edible Schoolyard program?  Or the schools participating in the Farm to School Program? Who is going to bother to mess with the beef I buy from Ted in Vacaville, or the tomatoes from Nigel in Winters, or the cherries from John in Escalon, or the berries I pick myself in Davenport?  Hitting any of these locations would have such a tiny effect compared to a processing plant which handles 177 million pounds of potatoes a year.

Of course the national folks should be paying attention to security at every step of the food process.  They should be making sure the large farms are protected, that the processing plants and distribution centers are secure, and that there is a strategic safety plan for the trucks carrying our food an average of 1,494 miles across the United States.  But I personally always feel more comfortable when I have control of a situation.  And buying locally grown foods helps me to take back that control.

References:

"Food Safety Officials Tackling School Lunch Threats", Associated Press, Jun 7 05.

"New Rules to Beat Food Terrorism", Associated Press, Dec 6 04.

Leopold Center Issues Locally Grown Food Report

Quality McFacts, McDonald's Corporation official media site

Food Tracking: Wrap Up Comments

Thanks, everyone, for hanging with me through this week.  It was interesting to write down what I ate.

I wanted to clear up one thing first:  This was just an attempt to write down what I eat on a regular basis - to see how close I come during normal, everyday life to eating locally and sustainably. 

Overall, I would say that in my everyday life, the good guys win at the end of the day.  Every day is sprinkled with some good things and a couple bad things.  But each day that I wrote, I would say that the good guys won out over the bad guys.

The restaurant eating is a frustrating thing.  Even in a town like San Francisco, your best bet for eating locally and sustainably is to cook for yourself.  Of course there are many exceptions, but they are not every day exceptions.   I need to get better at asking people exactly what ingredients are in food.  For instance, on day seven:  It would have been completely legitimate for me to ask the falafel guy where he gets his ingredients, but I didn't.

Just on a diet note:  I realized this week that I need to eat more green veggies!  I was actually fairly surprised by that.  I would say that this week was a little more protein heavy than I usually eat, but there really didn't seem to be many veggies in there.

The Chronicle today had a lengthy article about eating locally and a group of women who are challenging themselves to eat within a 100-mile radius* for the month of August.  Good timing!   Start thinking about whether you would be willing to try some part of this challenge for the month.  You would be able to set your own paramenters and the challenge can be whatever you choose:  eating locally one day a week, one meal a day, etc.  I am going to be posting a challenge to any of you who wish to participate -- for those of you who have a blog, I will be posting a meme in the next few days discussing it. 

* The 100-mile radius, I suspect, comes from Gary Paul Nabhan's excellent book Coming Home to Eat.  Thanks to everyone who posted about this book.  I read it a year or two ago, and it was one of those life-altering books for me.   The amazing thing that Nabhan did was to try and commit to eating foods native to his area.  That would be many times more difficult than even trying to eat local.  So let's just stick to local for the moment - that will be an amazing start.

Read the food tracking series:

Intro
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8

Food Tracking: Day Eight

Breakfast

Corn Tortillas, Rancho Gordo (Sacramento Delta)
Straus Sharp Cheddar Cheese (Pt. Reyes)
(sensing a theme?)

Early Dinner

Acme Bread (produced in San Francisco)
Paella made with Calrose rice, peas (Live Oak Farm, Rumsey), mushrooms (Solano Mushroom Farm, Solano County), shrimp (bought at Marin Farmer's Market), onion & garlic (bought at Marin Farmer's Market), chorizo, tomato (bought at Marin Farmer's Market).

Dinner was remarkable as it was literally the first time we have had a fresh tomato in the house since they went out of season last October.  This one was kind of cheating -- it was hothoused, but after I grilled Jason about whether he really needed a fresh tomato, I allowed it.  Overall an excellent day.  Jason grew up in Spain, so any paella that he makes is full of stories of the fishermen making them on the waterfront after their day at sea. 

(By the way, after dinner we went to see the Corpse Flower - you can see it on J's blog here and here)

Food Tracking: Day Seven

Breakfast

Peet's Coffee with Clover Stornetta Milk (Petaluma)
Falafel sandwich from the truck at the Marin Farmer's Market .  Ingredient origins unknown

Afternoon Snack

Corn Tortillas, Rancho Gordo (Sacramento Delta)
Straus Sharp Cheddar Cheese (Pt. Reyes)

Dinner

White rice, short grain Calrose - orgin unknown.  organic.
Rotisserie Chicken (Sonoma).  Prepared by Roli Roti.
Baby Butternut Squash, Balkanian Farms

Days when we go to the Farmer's Market are easy -- it's simple to eat local grown and fresh when you have the opportunity to get everything at the market that morning.  So it was a good day meeting all goals.  Jason had planned a big dinner for tonight, but I wasn't feeling great, so he made this simple dinner and is saving the big dinner for tomorrow night - thus I will be posting a final food tracking, day eight for Monday's dinner.

Balkanian Farm (Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market, Marin Farmer's Market) has the most beautiful variety of squash right now, including baby butternut squash that you can treat just as you would summer squash.  To tell the truth, I think that I like full-grown butternut squash better.  But they were interesting to try and so cute!  Next week I will be trying a different squash from them.

Read Food Tracking, Day Six

Food Tracking: Day Six

Breakfast

Canned Garbanzo Beans, Eden Foods, Indiana
Hard-boiled egg, Corning, California (see Food Tracking, Day 2)
Coffee from La Bou in Sacramento, roasted in San Francisco.

Lunch

Veggie omelettes made with eggs (Stanislaus County), zuchinni, potatoes (Linden), cheese (Petaluma), and tomato local to Sacramento.

Dinner
A shared plate of chicken nachos from a Sacramento Mexican Restaurant.  Not local, not organic.

Breakfast this morning was eaten on the train to Sacramento - I went to spend the day with my long-time best friend Jen.  Her husband was out of town, so it was girls day.  She informed me that by blogging about my food I had raised the bar for the day ... and she certainly stepped up to the plate by making a fantastic lunch of all local ingredients.  We went to the Sunrise Mall Farmer's Market and picked up some ingredients.  I wish that I had a decent picture of the meal, because it was beautiful and fantastic.  They came out pretty blurry though.  Jen does a great job of paying attention to local foods and is really working at buying as much as possible from farmer's markets.  She also is growing herbs and plums and some other things in her back yard. 

Overall, a pretty good day -- except for the nachos.  But a girl's gotta have her nachos every once in a while, right?

Read Food Blogging, Day 5