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Comments

I agree with this completely, thanks for the post.

Thank you for the post. I am an extern for Sustainable Table this summer, a free online directory to search for small local farms via zipcode. It's a great resource for anyone interested in eating sustainably.
www.eatwellguide.org

What about the option of inviting your friend over and making dinner for or, perhaps, with her? I guess your statement about your social life revolving around eating out rules out that possibility. It's unfortunate that most people don't appreciate the value of a home-cooked meal! If I was coming into town and seeing an old friend, I'd be thrilled if they invited me over and prepared a fresh meal out of local ingredients.

Thanks for your notes you all - love to hear comments. Krystle - you're totally right about inviting people over, and I do that often. But my friend gave me about 30 minutes notice and was flying out a couple hours later, so there was no possibility of her getting to my house, enjoying dinner and getting to the airport in time.

I think the solution is to count "eating out" as entertainment!

We eat at home every meal (or pack lunch) almost. We're in a CSA and I go to the market each week. To make it more complex, I work outside the house and have a young child -- too young to help much. So, I cook for the whole week in two nap sessions on the weekend. Under 3 hours to prepare 6-8 veggie dishes and two meats (my husband does the meats often) for the coming week. Mix in one easy dinner night (grilled cheese or pasta with veggies), and it keeps us eating home cooked meals that are mostly local. You get used to it, and it gets easier. We, too, spend too much on food. It's a choice. My wardrobe is old. We don't go out. I could still feed us well and local on about half what we spend. It can be done!

I think the path has rewards. Life should slow down a bit. Good food should be shared and important. It's worth it.

When I was growing up, my mother would freeze/pickle/jam everything she had in her garden (and from her friends' gardens as well) so we could eat it during the colder days that lied ahead. She did this to save money, not because she wanted to eat locally; we were living on a very tight budget. For most of the summer, we pretty much ate locally except for those runs to the grocery store in order to pick up meats (we bought Smithfield ham, though, because we lived in Virginia), drinks, and a few other things (dairy, etc.). If she were concerned about eating locally, though, we could have done it easily because the surrounding resources in Virginia were more than plentiful (and because she had three deep freezers!).

I pretty much have that same mentality now. But I'm also very limited because I live in an inhospitable part of the country (the desert). So I often wonder just how possible it is to eat locally when you live in a climate that receives 8.5 inches of rain per year and where the local populace doesn't understand the benefits of healthy eating and the state of the world's food system. We also have the trouble of encroaching developers and severe water issues that threaten to strip farmers' water rights. To me, this scenario doesn't bode well.

I don't mean to sound negative, just somewhat humbled by what's going on here since this is quite different from what I experienced as a boy.

$68 or under can be done by a single person. I have done it for $25. Buy on sale, forego expensive cuts of meat, buy one whole chicken, use it for roast, stew/ragout and soup. Buy brown rice, pasta on sale, vegetables on sale. Cook your own food -- it's healthier and less expensive.

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