www.eatlocalchallenge.com

Honey, I love you

by Julie Cummins

If I had been born with teeth, they all would have been sweet. My sugar preference (read: addiction) could have started in-utero; my mom is as madly in love with sweets as I am, if not more. It certainly started early, as seen in this photo of me at 1 1/2, in the process of sucking down my first ice cream cone.

So when I took on the Eat Local Challenge, my biggest concern was how I would fare without sugar. Would I have nagging cravings? Would I be grouchy and irritable? Would life seem empty and meaningless?

Fortunately, we humans plunder a delicious sweetener from thousands of fuzzy, winged, hardworking little ladies: bees. Thank heaven and earth for honey. Honey is one product that is available locally almost anywhere. And one thing I have in common with Winnie the Pooh is my opinion on honey and how far I'll go to get it.

Now how much would you pay?

By Julie Cummins

At the risk of being viewed as obsessive-compulsive, I'll share with you something I did this past week. Well, yeah, I ate almost exclusively food that was grown and produced within 100 miles of my home. But that wasn't the most obsessive part. I also kept a notebook of my meals and made meticulous calculations of how much they cost.

I'd heard people doubting that eating local could be done on a budget. I've heard this kind of lament before, working at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco. It's true that some local, organic food can cost more than supermarket produce (which is often imported from nations with much cheaper labor and looser environmental laws), but you can also find quite reasonably priced produce at the farmers' market.

I was curious to see how much eating local would cost.

List your local farms

by Julie Cummins

For those of you who live in San Francisco, here's something to make your Eat Local Challenge a little easier: a list of local farms that sell at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market and are less than 100 miles away. Many of the farms also sell at other Bay Area farmers' markets.

As I was describing the Eat Local Challenge to a shopper at the market, she said, "Aren't all the farms from within 100 miles?" The answer is no-- there are many farmers in the market who bring produce from farther reaches of the state, including citrus, dates, blueberries, and other beloved foods. And learning where each food comes from is what this Challenge is all about.

I encourage people from other cities to compile lists of farms in your area!

Thanks to Maggie Gosselin at CUESA for putting together the list.

Walking the walk, eating my talk

by Julie Cummins

I've been changing my mind about how far to go with this Eat Local Challenge. My first inclination was to go 100% local for a whole month. Luckily, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, so it wouldn't be impossible, just a challenge, as the name promises.

I started thinking about what this commitment would mean for my life. I took stock of everything I eat that would be out for the month of May. Coffee, tea, sugar, salt, spices, chocolate, tropical nuts, tortilla chips, soy products, and so on.

In preparation, I started stuffing my face with all the things I knew I wouldn't get to have later. I didn't feel a bit guilty about polishing off the rest of that ice cream (with vanilla from Madagascar? and sugar from Hawaii? just a guess), or the peanut butter (Mexico?). My fridge was full of forbidden items: Parmesan, salad dressing, beer, even the jam made from local organic strawberries would be out.