Saturday, September 29, 2007

Be Green: Eat Locally

Sunday morning is for the Farmers' Market!

Being green is all the rage right now and I hope it is not just a fad. Eating locally is a good way to reduce carbon emissions from produce transportation and support the small local farmers in your area.


In our house we are members of a community supported agriculture group, Be Wise Ranch, and we shop weekly at our neighborhood farmers market. We try not to eat fruits or vegetables out of season but that is easy because we live in southern California. Since my hometown is Fairbanks, Alaska, I completely understand just not having an option outside of shopping at the grocery store where lettuce is flown in from California. Look for a farmers market near you at the USDA website and if you reside in San Diego you can find a farmers market every day of the week.

I highly recommend delving into some reading on eating locally. I recently finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, with Steven Hopp and Camille Kingsolver. The book is a journal of their successful year of eating locally. Their website has recipes, information about seasonal vegetables and some good online resources to help you eat locally. For a larger perspective on how large corporate farming works and what it means to be a small, organic farmer I suggest reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan. M. Pollan has also compiled a nice list of links on his website about eating locally.

photo credit:
Jpimages | Dreamstime.com

2 comments:

eMpTy said...

you are quite the domestic goddess these days. i like that you are putting your great food finds to paper. now we can all enjoy.

i thought you might like this blog as well...
http://shecraves.typepad.com/

gotomakan said...

Hee hee, Elena eats 100% locally! :-) Ummm, we've been eating out of Taylor's dad's garden all summer, it's the best!! We live in a little "Banana Belt" of Colorado, so local produce is the best, for real. Plus, this is a ranching community, so local beef is always fresh and tasty. You should come out and eat locally here! Fly yourself to the good food instead of flying the good food to you! :-) Miss you and love you!