by Jen Maiser, Editor
From last night's Law and Order: SVU. Robin Williams claims he can't possibly have participated in a crime at a fast food restaurant because he's a locavore. I just about fell out of my chair. (video via Serious Eats)
by Jen Maiser
Amy Stewart's commentary on NPR's All Things Considered this week was a topic of conversation among ELC blog authors this week. While Ms. Stewart believes that we should all "shut up and eat," I hardly think that many of us will be following her directive anytime soon. Michael Pollan often speaks about the magic of voting with our forks. Unlike major, huge, unsurmountable issues that our world faces, food issues are something that we all decide on many times a day. I personally choose to put my hard-earned money in the hands of local farmers and local cheesemakers and local artisans over international conglomerates and mega-corporations.
Ms. Stewart suggests that instead of focusing on where our food comes from, we should try taking public transportation or turning down the thermostat. Most of us who are conscious enough to focus on where our food comes from don't turn off that consciousness when it comes to these sort of things -- we tend to tread lightly on the earth in many ways.
While I suspect that Ms. Stewart was trying to be sensationalist and contrarian about some of the pedantic, minutia-oriented conversations that can occur around food (and that many of us tire of at some point), I don't think that an overarching declaration against eating local is the answer.
Below, you'll find some opinions from other ELC authors around the nation. Check them out -- I think they're fantastic.
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from Liz (Maine):
No doubt local eating is old news where you live in California, the land of plenty. But it is an absolute triumph that the rest of America is finally paying attention to what goes on its dinner plate. Please don't begrudge us Mainers or Michiganders or Minnesotans for finally catching on to what you savvy Californians have known all along: that fresher foods taste better. What's more is that we're finding we can produce our food just as well, if not better than your fine state, cutting out the factory farms, middlemen, and days of travel on the way.
I don't often dole out advice, Amy, but it seems like you need to either find some non-foodie friends or start talking up some new cause. If it goes well, the rest of us should be buzzing about it in 2013. Until then, I will continue to celebrate the foods of my state with my friends and family. Don't worry, I'll make sure not to invite you to the dinner party.
by Jen Maiser
In an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle's Sunday paper, William G. Moseley takes a swipe at the eat local movement in an article titled "Farmers in developing world hurt by 'eat local' philosophy in U.S."
While I respect Mr. Moseley's attempt to bring any attention to the admirable fair trade movement, his finger is pointed in the wrong direction.
Eat Local advocates are often painted as coffee-shunning, chocolate-declining masochists who eschew absolutely everything that is not local. The truth is much less compelling in print, so the moderates among us are not often in the spotlight.
by Jen Maiser
"If 10,000 ... households spend their Thanksgiving meal dollars on local food, we'll invest about $381,000 into our own communities."
This fact came from the Ideal Bite newsletter this morning based on the American Farm Bureau's statistic that the average amount spent for a family Thanksgiving for 10 is $38.10 in the United States.
Interested in participating in the 100-mile Thanksgiving? Go to the 100-Mile Diet website to learn more!
Jennifer Maiser is the editor of the Eat Local Challenge website. She is often found behind a camera or writing for her site, Life Begins at 30. Photo from her Flickr site.
Our friends Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon at the 100-mile diet website are hosting the second annual 100-mile Thanksgiving, challenging participants to plan a Thanksgiving meal using food products grown, raised or gathered from within 100 miles of their home. Check out their website to sign up. I will be participating to the best of my ability -- bringing dishes made from local products to my family's potluck Thanksgiving dinner.
Jennifer Maiser is the editor of the Eat Local Challenge website. She is often found behind a camera or writing for her site, Life Begins at 30.
The Detroit News has an interesting story about Country-Of-Origin-Labeling (COOL) for meat, produce and peanuts that is set to go into effect a year from now if a scheduled federal mandate goes through. We already have COOL labels on our seafood, and this would move to beef, pork, lamb, veal, produce and peanuts.
Not surprisingly, the meat industry and other large producers are not happy with this mandate (which was a part of the 2002 Farm Bill). They are also claiming that the mandate will be "confusing for customers". The spokesman for the National Meat Association says, "Animals slaughtered in the U.S. weren't
necessarily born here... Under the current proposal, the
labels would have to reveal everywhere they've been. The labels could
end up looking like passports."
Well, not the meat that I buy!
Read the rest of the article here.
(via Marion Nestle's new blog, What to Eat)
Last Friday, the House passed a Food and Farm Bill with 231 in favor, 191 against. Nineteen Republicans voted in favor of the bill, while 14 Democrats voted against it. Thanks to a last-minute tax-adjustment proposal, the vote was a lot closer than most farm bills (in 2002, the House version passed 291-120). The official name of the Food and Farm Bill is the "Farm, Nutrition, and Bioenergy Act of 2007" and its identifier is H.R. 2419.
NPR's Morning Edition had a segment this week about supermarket chains that are working to provide local produce. I was interested recently to hear that Raley's is among California supermarkets working to provide local food to consumers. The NPR segment is interesting as it has interviews with farmers, supermarkets, and marketing people (who expect local produce to become a $7 billion business within the next 4 years ... a statement which rather confuses me, as all produce is local to somewhere).
The Washington Post this week published an article discussing the local food movement specific to the Washington DC area. (via Ethicurean)
American Flatbread in Ashburn sits a few turns off the Dulles Greenway on the cusp of burgeoning suburbia. Parked in a strip shopping center behind a McDonald's and sharing a wall with a Glory Days Grill, this is an unlikely place to find a food movement.
Customers at the new pizzeria dine on weekly specials that include poultry and pork raised free-range and greens that are freshly picked. Much of the food is organic. But the real emphasis is local.
Continue reading here
by Jen Maiser
The lovely blogger who posts at "The Public, the Private and Everything in Between" has a post describing her attempts to eat locally this summer. I enjoyed her cogent insights about several aspects of eating locally.
An excerpt:
It felt good, finally, to do something I’d been meaning to do for such a long time, and know for at least one day out of my wasteful grownup life I helped the environment (buying local obviously means signicantly less gas was wasted delivering your food, plus the produce isn’t packaged or dumped into plastic bags) while at the same time buying healthy, beautiful food for S. and me.
by Jen Maiser
Culinate has published a compelling article by Deborah Madison in which she outlines her choice of local and organic when possible. I think that you'll find most of the authors on this board agree that, when possible it's best to choose local and organic. And I personally, don't love to see the two pitted against each other as it's some sort of an either/or contest. All of this is nicely summarized in Ms. Madison's piece. I hope you'll check it out.
An excerpt:
I am not a fan of the insipid-tasting organic produce that fills the aisles of supermarkets. The real question is not so much organics versus local as much as it is Big Organics from far away versus the local organic food from your farmers’ market or CSA. That’s the real choice, and I’ll choose my local organic offerings every time. Why? They taste better, they’re fresher, they didn’t travel 1,500 miles (or more), and the plant varieties are more interesting.
by Jen Maiser
Can a single woman in San Francisco eat local foods on a budget of $68 a week?
Yes and no. Yes, if she's willing to eat every meal at home and forgo a social life that revolves around eating out.
During my Penny-Wise Eat Local Challenge week, I spent $153.10. That included a couple of splurge meals -- most notably $42 at Hog Island Oyster Company one night. Given my target budget, to say that I was way over is an understatement.
While I was committed to the idea of the challenge and kept scrupulous notes during the week on the amount I spent, when a close friend who I hadn't seen for months was in town for about an hour one night, I had a bit of a dilemma: do I opt not to see her? Go somewhere less expensive that kept me in my budget but threw ethical eating out the window? Or go to a restaurant that, if pricey, made me feel good about where my money was going, and was a nice place to take an out-of-towner to boot?
by Jen Maiser
As mentioned yesterday, the UC Berkeley School of Journalism hosted an exciting event last night: Michael Pollan and John Mackey in dialogue about food issues. If you read blogs by other writers in the San Francisco area, you will notice a plethora of comments about the event last night.
Why the excitement? It's a rare thing when we see a CEO of a major corporation sit in a room of possible detractors and open himself up to questions and unscripted dialogue. So rare, in fact, that an auditorium with 2,000 seats sold out in less than a week.
As the event opened, John Mackey asked how many people in the room had read The Omnivore's Dilemma. To my eye, at least 2/3 of the audience raised their hands. This was a room that was engaged, savvy, and ready to hear what Mackey had to say.
Continue reading "The Past, The Present, The Future of Food" »
by Jen Maiser
The hottest ticket in town tonight is the John Mackey and Michael Pollan event at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. Those of us who follow food politics watched with interest last summer as The Omnivore's Dilemma kicked off a series of letters between the author, Michael Pollan, and John Mackey -- the CEO of Whole Foods. The event is sold out, but you can watch the live webcast courtesy of UC Berkeley. With the number of bloggers who are planning to attend, you will surely be reading posts about the event this week.
Letter 1: Mackey to Pollan
Letter 1 Response: Pollan to Mackey
Letter 2: Mackey to Pollan
Letter 2 Response: Pollan to Mackey
Jennifer Maiser is the editor of the Eat Local Challenge blog and the author of Life Begins at 30.
by Jen Maiser
This post falls under the "admin" portion of this blog. Just a couple quick notes.
1) If you have a blog and have posted a challenge announcement, please email me the link. The summary post will be going up on Friday. If you have emailed me and haven't heard back, I have your email and am processing it. Sorry that I haven't written back to everyone individually!
2) If you have a blog and are interested in a ELC logo, go here to choose from our variety of logos.
Thanks!
by Jen Maiser
If you are not from San Francisco, do not continue reading this post. It is one of those annoying posts that proves the bounty of our area.
Stephanie Lucianovic is a fellow Bay Area Bites contributor and the author of The Grub Report. I read Stephanie's writing long before I ever met her, as she was the author of one of my favorite posts ever: "How not to act in a cheese shop." She also works at one of the Bay Area's finest cheese shops. This shop is known nationwide for supporting artisan cheesemakers and seeking out the best of small production cheeses.
I asked Stephanie to give us a guide to the cheeses available within 100 miles of San Francisco, and the SF Guide to Local Cheeses was born. Please continue reading for the list or click here for a pdf of the guide. All of the cheeses in the list are available at Cowgirl Creamery.
One of the largest areas of disparity during last year's eat local challenge was how participants chose to deal with spices. Some did their best using only the spices in their local foodshed, some put spices in their exceptions, and some adamantly used spices from outside the area stating that spices have always been foreign, and they weren't going to try and change that with the Eat Local Challenge.
How are you going to address spices during your eat local challenge?
I have not completely decided about this, and am fairly torn about what to do. On one hand, the Bay Area has a good enough variety of herbs, some spices (mostly chile powders), and condiments that I should be able to do without outside spices.
Eating local means more for the local economy. According to a study by the New Economics Foundation in London, a dollar spent locally generates twice as much income for the local economy. When businesses are not owned locally, money leaves the community at every transaction. (reference)
Locally grown produce is fresher. While produce that is purchased in the supermarket or a big-box store has been in transit or cold-stored for days or weeks, produce that you purchase at your local farmer's market has often been picked within 24 hours of your purchase. This freshness not only affects the taste of your food, but the nutritional value which declines with time.
Local food just plain tastes better. Ever tried a tomato that was picked within 24 hours? 'Nuff said.
EatLocalChallenge.com is a group blog written by authors who are interested in the benefits of eating food grown and produced in their local foodshed.
Spanning the United States, the group is committed to challenging themselves to eat mainly local food during a specific period of time during the year.
Why do we choose to eat local? Read our 10 Reasons to Eat Local.
Interested in eating local and need some tips? Read our tips for the Eat Local Challenge.
Interested in joining a challenge? Keep an eye on this website for new challenge announcements
Check out these challenges hosted by this website's authors and affiliates:
September '07 Challenge
2007 One Local Summer
April '07 Pennywise Challenge
2006 100-Mile Thanksgiving
2006 One Local Summer
May '06 Challenge
August '05 Challenge
Need to contact us? Go to our contact page.
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