local fare

Today I'm posting about something that has grown increasingly important to me. Eating locally is something I had literally never thought of before last summer. Even then, it didn't really click until a few months ago. Then I read Barbara Kingsolver's nonfiction book, entitled "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle." It completely changed the way I look at where we acquire the food we eat.

Oxford University Press puts it quite succinctly: "The 'locavore' movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to grow or pick their own food, arguing that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better." Locavore. I like that.

A major factor in this issue is the use of fossil fuels in transporting food to your local supermarket. According to Locavores.com, most of our nourishment makes its way "an average of 1,500 miles before ending up on our plates."

Consider this:

Transporting a single calorie of a perishable fresh fruit from California to New York takes about 87 calories worth of fuel. That's as efficient as driving from Philadelphia to Annapolis, and back, in order to walk three miles on a treadmill in a Maryland gym.
--Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (page 68)

This is hardly necessary! Throughout our country (nay, world), wonderful, fresh foods are cultivated. Yes, every area has it specialties. Oregon is famous for its berries. Washington, it's apples. Iowa, corn. And California...well, California is famous for just about everything. Even so, there are many common foods which are grown all over the United States. To me, it makes so much sense to shop locally.

It makes no sense to transport food over so many miles, when it's often grown nearby. And I believe that it's important to support small farmers, and to cultivate relationships with them. I'd hate to see the craft of farming be taken completely over by big business.

Still, the thing that appeals to me the most about local food is the freshness and flavor. It simply cannot compare with bananas which are packed off long before they are ripe, and hauled halfway around the world.

Local food was the norm for so long. People ate seasonally, enjoying fresh fruits and vegetables after they were harvested, and preserving them for the winter and spring months. Then it occurred to someone - probably for the novelty of it - to transport food thousands of miles, to where it was not in season. I imagine that it was for a dinner party, a fancy reception, or some such thing. "Amazing! Artichokes, at this time of year! How brilliant!"

Except that maybe it isn't so brilliant, after all.

Here's an aspect that Barbara Kingsolver mentioned: we don't know how to wait for seasonal food anymore. We as a culture are so accustomed to getting what, whenever we want it. Tomatoes in December? Of course! Strawberries in November? We'll just bring them from California - which may not be a huge haul to Oregon, but what about New York?

I'd like to suggest that the payoff might be in the waiting. In choosing not to eat mealy, pale tomatoes in the winter, but to wait for red, juicy ones at our local farmers' market in summertime. In being patient, remembering that there is indeed a time (and a season) for everything.

Does this mean I'll never buy another banana again, unless I move to South America? What about avocados? Fresh pineapple? Honestly, I haven't figured all the details out yet. I know that I will continue to have at least a handful of exceptions: olive oil, coconut oil, coffee. Maybe the list of exceptions will occasionally include tropical fruit, too.

My point is that we need to consider the cost when shopping for food. The cost to our community when we give our money for exotic items, the cost to the planet when we burn untold amounts of fuel to transport out-of-season food. And the cost to ourselves, when we lose touch with the natural world and its seasons ~ the way the great Gardener planned it, Himself.

***This post is part of Fight Back Fridays at Food Renegade. Click on the link to learn more.