Eat Local Foods and Buy Local Products
Thanh -- August 5th, 2007
In this month’s issue of eightyone, the covery story featured “Eat Local Challenge” by Sonya Shaver. Shaver tells us about her and her family’s 30-day experience of eating only food grown and/or produced within 100-miles of where she lives.
I have been going to the Harrisonburg Farmers Market to buy fresh green beans, beets, swiss chard, tomoatoes, farm eggs, corn, etc about once a week since its opened in the Spring (I miss a few Saturdays when I am out of town) and now with nieghbors and co-workers coming out of their ears (!) in tomatoes, yellow squash, and cucumbers I have had more pleasure enjoying locally grown produce and not making so many trips to the grocery store.
I also make my own breads at home (although I use non-local yeast and I get help from a bread machine), I buy local honey, and I buy local grass fed beef from a friend’s family (although most of the 1/20th of beef we purchased in February is still sitting in our freezer – my fiance and I don’t eat meat often). In eating this way I have seen many benefits – I feel good about getting my “5-a-day“, I have made connections with the food I eat and the people who sell it (I even know the name of the cow in my freezer by its first name), I feel better knowing that my food is fresh and has no chemicals I cannot pronounce or identify their origins, I like knowing I am helping my “nieghbors” and adding back to the local economy, I have become more adventurous in trying new vegetables I’ve never eaten or cooked, when a particular vegetable is in full force I have fun sharing recipes with friends, and I feel good knowing I’m not adding packaging waste to the landfill (no styroform and plastic wrapped zucchinni’s for me!).
Despite my current efforts, Sonya’s “Eat Local Challenge” story has inspired me to try a little harder to seek out more locally produced items such as milk, butter, flour, etc. and now I’m almost certain that I’ll be joining a CSA next year. However, I am willing to admit that I currently don’t forsee myself living the 100-mile diet, excluding items like olive oil, balsalmic vinegar, bananas, or dark chocolate. But I will do more to increase the percentage of local foods in my diet.
At the end of Sonya’s article is a list of tips and resources. There are several thoughts I am interested in exploring here with you all.
1) I am interested in what your thoughts on buying local are, and where do you get local produce, meats, and other items from? Any suggestions or additional resources to share?
2) I am interested to hear from owners/employees of local resturants, deli’s, bakeries, etc to find out which ones purchase local products and what their feelings are on purchasing or not purchasing local.
On a related note, one of the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County Healthy Community Council’s top three priorities lead to the creation of a team (of which I am a participant) – Healthly Community Design & Green Fitness Infrastructure (“The Green Team”). This team is currently exploring options to create a local Buy Fresh Buy Local chapter here in this area to help connect consumers with fresh foods.
3) I am interested in anyone’s thoughts on how we can encourage and assist large institutions like Harrisonburg City Public Schools, Rockingham County Public Schools, James Madison University, etc to either start or increase the percentage of food they purchase locally. It has been explained to me that purchasing local foods on a large scale can be difficult. Many local farms are too small to meet the demand of a large institution. Its easier for large institutions to go to companies like Sysco and Aramark, who can act as brokers and connect vendors with clients. (In a draft JMU report on Sustainability and Environmental Stewardship, JMU’s Dining Services estimates that they are purchasing an average of 10% of the products locally – that’s quite a lot considering the number of people they feed daily and a great step.) What can we do, if anything, as clients or members of the general public to encourage companies like Aramark and Sysco help make more connections between institutions and their local vendors?
There’s the issue of seasonality of produce – more produce is in season during the Spring and Summer when schools are out. When schools are in session in the Fall, Winter, early Spring, it is not typically peak growing season for the majority of produce. One idea I’ve heard discussed by JMU dining services is blast chilling local foods when they are in peak season so that they can be served year-round – but JMU is still exploring this idea’s feasibility (expense of purchasing a blast chiller, and freezer/storage space). On the surface it appears like a great idea, and I hope it works.
4) I wish to share a book by Michael Polland titled “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” . The entire book is great. Something local of potential interest to hburgnews readers is that Polland spends a chapter discussing his visit to Polyface Farm in Swoope, VA (outside of Staunton).
I’m interested to hear your thoughts… Thanks!
I shouldn’t do this since I haven’t read the book YET, but from what I’ve heard from others, I’d also recommend “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver. From a review:
“Barbara Kingsolver and her family sweep readers along on their journey away from the industrial-food pipeline to a rural life in which they vow to buy only food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Their good-humored search yields surprising discoveries about turkey sex life and overly zealous zucchini plants, en route to a food culture that’s better for the neighborhood and also better on the table. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle makes a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life and diversified farms at the center of the American diet. “
Also, foodroutes.org is a resource for finding local foods. (I learned about this organization from singer Adrienne Young.)
I do my best to buy local produce whenever possible, but quite often I find it very difficult to afford to do so. Sadly, I do have to look at my budget, and sometimes local just doesn’t fit. But, I’m attempting to work it in when possible, and cut back in other areas in order to do so. I go to the farmer’s market every Saturday and almost every Tuesday and buy small quantities so as not to waste it. I don’t eat very much meat, but my co-workers and I are bouncing around the idea of getting a local cow and splitting it up. I’d go complete vegetarian if I understood enough to be sure we were getting the nutrients we need.
I’m not sure how the larger institutions could go about buying local, but I’d settle for healthier. I’d love it if the local schools would look into the program (Natural Ovens, I think) mentioned in Supersize Me. My son’s school does have some standards for nutrition and they do a good job for the most part, but there is a lot that could be improved and I’m not sure it would cost that much more.
I know of one restaurant in Dayton that will only buy meat from Red Front or T&E meat market. I believe T&E to be local animals, and though I’m not sure where Red Front gets their beef, at least the store is local.
I’m doing pretty well, sharing and trading homegrown veggies with my friends, and going to the farmer’s market, as well as eating out less (you also have to think about where the restaurants get their food from).
On the subject of eating meat, Waldo recently posted about that.
I didn’t have a chance to read back through what Thanh wrote here, so forgive me if this was mentioned already, but the Joshua Wilton House is mentioned in a newsletter put out by HDR this month. According to the newsletter 87% of the menu comes from local meat and produce.
Thanks so much to Thanh for posting this!
Two not-local but still relevant links:
1) Staunton Grocery, a fine dining restaurant that has stated that it’s goal is “sourcing 100% of our products locally.” See http://www.stauntongrocery.com/
2) E.A.T. Local email discussion list, a “community-based forum for all people interested in enhancing the sustainability of the larger Charlottesville regional foodshed.” https://list.mail.virginia.edu/mailman/listinfo/sustcomfood/
Does anyone know of any regional food magazines along the lines of http://www.ediblecommunities.com/pages/membernews.htm ?
I have a friend who has a 5-acre garden in Rockingham County just outside of Harrisonburg. He offers a subscription service to deliver fresh vegetables once a week to your door. (Some of you may have already eaten his veggies – he also sells vegetables at the downtown farmer’s market.) He farms without the use of pesticides, Roundup, or chemical fertilizers and his vegetables are excellent quality. I spoke with him last evening, and he’s not taking any more subscriptions this season, but if you’re interested for next season, you can contact him at radellschrock at yahoo dot com or by calling 908-5399.
Of course, now that I read the rest of Sonya’s article (didn’t finish it yesterday), I see that she mentioned Radell as being part of the CSA at the bottom. :-)
I feel Emmy’s pain, local food is great but can be expensive. I do a fair amount of porch gardening (it’s hard to garden when you live in a townhouse) which helps a lot. I shop the Farmer’s Market weekly and it seems that things are slightly cheaper on Tues mornings instead of Sat.
One thing that wasn’t discussed here, but might have been in the article at eightyone are the allergy implication to eating local. Being very fitting since I’m a huge geek, I have AWFUL allergies. One old timey trick I learned though is when you eat honey made locally it helps with allergies. Weird but true!
On a side note, Thanh, is the Green Team still meeting outside of the Community Summit? I haven’t seen any emails about it and I don’t think I got contact information for anyone after the last big meeting.
Sorry, one more thing I didn’t mention. It’s a bit late for this year, but next year if you want to grow your own fruits and veggies you can rent a community garden patch. I think it was mentioned in the Rocktown Weekly awhile ago. Pretty sure it’s a service provided by the city and that it’s pretty cheap.
Oh, and my very last plug of the day, promise. If you want good, mostly local, and FREE food, then come to the Little Grill for lunch on Monday’s (show up at least by 11:45 if you don’t want to eat standing) and join in the Community Lunch!
When we were doing some regular work in Staunton I made a point to use the downtown butcher. Great stuff.
Re: freezers
I grew up with a large garden and freezer, neither of which I have now. I don’t do nearly enough freezing and thawing with our fridge freezer. We were pricing appliances this past weekend and I took note of the freezer isle. A small unit costs the price of a few trips for two to the grocery store.
Anybody else have thoughts in the “freeze now for later” arena?
I plan to buy a small freezer for my apartment in the near future. I used to freeze a lot of things, but now space is more of an issue. I’m going to try some container gardening next season.
An interesting piece in yesterday’s NY Times about how measuring the carbon footprint of food is much more complex than simply measuring miles traveled.
Food That Travels Well
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/opinion/06mcwilliams.html?ex=1344052800&en=d27bad8aabe4ee0a&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
“There are many good reasons for eating local — freshness, purity, taste, community cohesion and preserving open space — but none of these benefits compares to the much-touted claim that eating local reduces fossil fuel consumption.”
1) I’ll admit it, I’m a tree hugger. Like some of you, one of my big reasons for eating local includes personal responsibility. I prefer to imagine myself paying for the cost of food upfront (paying a little more for a dozen eggs that came from local chickens) as opposed to paying the environmental costs of my food later when there’s a problem (perhaps with too much chicken poop polluting our waterways or global climate change from shipping eggs from far away).
2) Emmy – splitting the cost of beef between a number of friends is a great idea. That’s how I acquired the 1/20th of beef, 4 other friends and I split a 1/4 beef. The cost was very reasonable and the beef tastes great.
3) Emmy – can you share with me the name of the restaurant in Dayton that buys local meat? Thanks.
4) I found this list from Polyface of restaurants/bakeries that buy their products – http://polyfacefarms.com/taste.aspx
5) Josh C and others interested in the Health Community Council’s Green Team – If you’re interested in participating, please contact Cindy Reeves at creeves [at] rhcc.com, co-leader the team. The other co-leader is John Eckman, Executive Director of the Valley Conservation Council. The team has met once last month and identified some tasks to prepare for the September 11 HCC summit meeting. We’re really interested in getting people from the bicycling community involved too, as our other focus is on increased connectivity for pedestrians and bicyclists.
6) Harrisonburg Community Garden – here’s information and contacts for that, http://www.harrisonburgva.gov/index.php?id=342
Sure Thanh, it’s Jim’s Drive-In. It’s a hamburger place for the most part, but he buys local meat and uses local produce as much as he can.
Jim’s burgers are great, too.
I see that people keep mentioning the price of locally raised meats and produce.
The first thing I have to mention is this. The average amount of peoples income spent on eating daily meals has in fact reduced. Because of cheap labor over seas and mass production food costs less in dollars. But I think what you may not see is the overall cost of shopping at super markets. With current food shopping trends we are insuring that what built this country (agriculture) will no long exist in this country. Plus if more people shop locally for there food stuffs, the prices will go down.
There is a lot more to this issue that people don’t seem to want to know about.
I concur with Ian on his above comment.
Also, my perception of the average American is that he/she spends a larger amount of money on food than I do because he/she eats more packaged foods and/or eats out more often. This can also have detrimental effects on individuals health too.
Like Sonya, in the eightyone article, I actually found myself saving a substantial amount of money buying local foods and products. And Emmy hit an important point too – buying small/moderate quantities so that you’re not wasting food. I consider food going in the trash a loss of dollars. Maybe buying local has encouraged me to buy moderate quanitites instead of buy large tubs of things from places like Costco that I struggle trying to finish.
Some of you might also be interested in this article – How the feds make bad-for-you food cheaper than healthful fare – http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/22/philpott/ (Corn is in everything! and I don’t think it should be.)
I was talking to a friend yesterday who once lived eating hand to mouth. I’d hate to speak for him, but I’m not sure if he’ll have time to comment here or if he would want to, so I’ll summarize our discussion here -
He explained to me that he once could not afford to buy groceries on a weekly basis or front the money for some of the ingredients that I take for granted because I often have on hand to prepare foods (a pantry of spice and herbs really helps). My friend used to look for deals at fast food places and he always looked for meals where he can get the most quantity for as little money as possible (20 chicken nuggets for 2 dollars, and that’s 2 meals for the day or Cici’s where he would gorge himself and that’d be his one meal for the day). Buying locally, or buying groceries at all was never an option for him. I’m not sure if he considered or really cared about how good or bad the food was for him, I assume that it was a matter of just getting food.
Also, we discussed taste – how many Americans have enjoyed the taste of fast food, high sodium, high fat foods, high sugar and its often hard for them to change over to eating more vegetables or foods with less sodium, fat, or sugar because it doesn’t taste as good – at least at first. (My diet has definately changed since I was in college, and I don’t eat fast food or even out often anymore because it tastes too greasy and salty to me.)
Anyway, the point that I want to share is that for people who have very small incomes, finding enough to eat is just a difficult thing. And this is where I agree with Ian that if more of us who can afford to buy more locally do buy locally, that with increasing demand, and economic stability provided to local farmers, that the cost of local foods and products would go down.
My other wish is that large institutions like public schools bought more local foods and prepared them in a more nutritious fashion than what I remember eating when I was younger. But then I’ve heard/read stories where children are used to eating the boxed mac & cheese, and then mac & cheese freshly prepared by the schools doesn’t taste good to them – but then again, is mac & cheese really that healthy? Another friend I spoke to last night said that her school offered garden burgers, but only upon request, when she was younger. The cafeteria staff also gave her extra fruits and veggies – she was and still is a vegetarian.
Also, I read somewhere or heard on the radio that some places are trying to provide accessibility to buy local produce to low income mothers and senior citizens, by setting up a system where food stamps can be used at farmers markets. I found this information this morning online – http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/FMNP/FMNPfaqs.htm . In 2005, there were 16,412 recipients in the program in Virginia. Maybe this is something Harrisonburg can explore. I’m going to see if I can talk to a few people to inquire on feasibility here.
Along those same lines, all farmers markets across the country except food stamps, which I don’t think most people know. Unfortunately that is not something that our government is so forth coming with for those recipients that do receive food stamps.
The NYT article Josh cites above indeed says, as quoted, “none of these benefits compares to the much-touted claim that eating local reduces fossil fuel consumption.” But two paragraphs later it says, “According to this peer-reviewed research, compelling evidence suggests that there is more — or less — to food miles than meets the eye.”
Just a suggestion. Read the whole thing, and keep in mind that miles traveled is not the whole story.
Some of you may be interested in this course–
Fall Permaculture Design Course: Sustainability Strategies for the Blue Ridge
Course held near Charlottesville; October 5-7, 19-21 and Nov. 2-4, 16-18
$895, a few work trade positions are available
http://www.blueridgepermaculture.net/Events-Classes/events.htm
I know this post is very old, but this article was on CNN yesterday and I thought someone else might want to read it.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/wayoflife/08/31/buying.local.food/index.html
Cool article. Thanks Emmy!
Bringing this up again! This month’s issue of Today’s Diet & Nutrition magazine has an article about Community Supported Agriculture and Polyface Farms in Staunton is mentioned. No link on their website, but there is a picture of the issue to help you find it.
http://www.todaysdietandnutrition.com/index.shtml
Another sort of related link…
JMU Plans Nation’s First Certificate in Environmental Sustainability
http://www.jmu.edu/jmuweb/general/news/general8961.shtml
Semi-emergency…Can some one please tell me the hours of operation for T & E Meat market on Charles street. Thank you !
I just read about the Oxford word of the year and it reminded me of this discussion thread: Locavore
http://blog.oup.com/2007/11/locavore/
See also http://www.locavores.com/
Never heard that one before.
The latest Community Binder Newsletter, by the Virginia Cooperative Extension, features “Community, Farm, and Food System Innovation: A Vision for Virginia Agriculture and Vibrant Healthy Communities.” http://info.ag.vt.edu/vce/offices/newsletters/15NOV2007_CBinder.pdf Eric Bendfeldt, the editor is a co-leader of the Healthy Community Council’s Green Team’s Initiatives for “Local Foods”. The group has participants ranging up and down the valley, I forget how far north, but as far south as Rockbridge and Lexington. A mixture of farmers, producers, grocery store owners, chefs, public school nutritionists, nonprofits, university staff, local government staff, and interested citizens make up the diversity of participants who all share the same goal – of bringing locally produced foods to local tables. Please contact Eric if you are interested.
Speaking of the 100 mile diet, this was in the DNR today:
“…the Shenandoah Resource Conservation and Development Council … will hold a free workshop from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Dec. 4 at the New Market Rescue Squad Building at 9202 N. Congress St., said Kathy Holm, the group’s coordinator. The aim of the workshop is to strengthen area farmers’ markets.”
T and E Meat Market hours are as follows
Monday through Thursday 8:30-5:00 p.m.
Friday 8:00-6:00
Saturday 8:00-5:00
Stop by to check out the store.