My Eat Local Challenge

It's Eat Local Challenge time around here, and we have five days to go before a month of eating locally.  I am going to be in Southern California for the first few days of the challenge, so will try my best to eat locally here.

I'm asking Eat Local Challenge participants to make a statement of participation for their personal challenges and thought I'd outline mine as well.  My goals for the month are as follows:

1.  What's your definition of local for this challenge?  Local will be anything within 100 miles of where I am.  When traveling, I will do my best to cook with local ingredients.

2.  What exemptions will you claim?

• Coffee from local roasters.
• Yeast.
• Spices when I can't find a local substitute.
• Rice will be purchased from Massa Organics, which is 166 miles from San Francisco.
• When eating out, anything is game at a restaurant that makes a claim of supporting local producers.  I will do my best to eat out only at restaurants that support local producers.
• I will not turn down anything made for me or offered in friendship or love.

3.  What are your goals for the month? To try really integrating a local diet into a social life that doesn't always allow that.  To never make others feel uncomfortable with the choices that I have made for my own diet.  To figure out how to eat locally in a more budget-effective manner.

Comments

[Danielle]

Hello! I am very excited to have just signed up for the Eat Local Challenge. Local for me as well will be anything in a 100 mile radius of my apartment. Exemptions will include tea, coffee, one brand of cereal, and LIMITED times when social situations do not permit locally grown foods.
My goals for the month are really to get a sense of how easy/difficult it is to eat an eco-friendly diet, and to appreciate the local agriculture in Champaign Illinois. Also, I am a college student with limited funds, and hoping that the challenge proves fiscally viable.

[Wendy Allen]

Hello everyone taking the challenge........
My local area is 150 miles from my home in Fairhope Alabama. I know this is a large local area but this is an in between time for local gardens to produce much. It will be a true challenge this time of year to eat totally local but my goal is to identify as much local produce as I can and make contacts with local farmers for the future.
Exemptions will be coffee, spices, and olive oils and an occasional outing.

[Tia]

I started today and it has been fine but I can already see that breakfast is going to be a struggle without bread. I mooshed together a farm egg, potatoes, onions, and spinach and fried them all up in the frying pan. I stayed full until lunch but it was a bit tough to stomach at 6am! Anyone have any good breakfast ideas?

[Tia]

OOPS, forgot to put my exemptions. I am jsut giving up coffee for the month so I don't have to make ann exemption for that. I will eat a restaurant dinner on Saturdays b/c that is something my kids always expect us to do. Other than that, I'm going to go for it! :) I signed up for a CSA yesterday to cut down on the gas to various farmer's markets so...let the games begin! :)

[Mangochild]

I'm near Hartford, CT and am jumping right in! I'm a vegan, and am lucky to have several farms within 20 miles of my home, making produce easy to get locally. I make my own bread, and one of the national wheat flour and oat producers is within my "local" zone, so I appreciate having local flour/cereal available.

My "local" is a maximum of 150 miles from my home, preferably much less of course!
My exemptions are (not including spices)
--frozen mango (see reference to my name- I eat one a day)
--yeast
--one brand of rice
--dried beans - I will try to get as local as I can, but if not possible, I would claim an exemption as it is one of my main protein sources as a vegan.

Going grocery shopping and CSA picking today, I was able to get all my grocery for the week locally! I am glad that, as of about 2 weeks ago, the grocery store I go to started posting signs above all their produce saying exactly where it came from, down to the farm if possible, but at least the state. It also makes a point to buy from the local farmers as much as possible and feature those produce items. Woo-hoo!