Posted by Melanie Reid.
As the Winter Eat Local Challenge winds down I feel like our family didn’t do as well as we had planned (we were pushing for 80% local), however, we did eat at least 50% of our food from local sources all week. Although we try to eat local all the time, we love the Challenges because they remind us to look more closely at our choices and up the ante a little! It’s easy to get into (not so great) habits with our food choices, and so we appreciate the reminder that the Challenge carries along with it to remain diligent and to remember why Eating Local is so important.
My favorite part about the Eat Local Challenge is our son’s increased interested in his food. This time he challenged himself to take a local lunch to school every day during the Challenge, we had fun putting together new combinations and searching the aisles of the Co-op for local treats and surprises that we either had not yet discovered or had forgotten about.
We also like to alter our usual recipes and localize them during the Challenge. It provides an opportunity to try alternative brands and to discover hidden gems in the aisles of Just Food! Even though I walk the aisles every day, even I find new things to taste and share with my family during the Challenge. This time our discoveries included a bread variety from Brick Oven that we hadn’t eaten in years- (children’s pleasure) and our son was delighted to learn that Helios Kefir is a local company. We renewed our vows with Whole Grain Milling Company Chips and were reminded of the amazing flavor of Lorence’s Raspberry syrup (yum!)
We preserved quite a lot of food from our fall garden harvest and the Challenge reminded us of how great that is. We enjoyed the ease of finding dinner on our pantry shelves and eating some strawberries that we had forgotten were in our freezer! This Challenge came at the perfect time; my husband could unpack his orders from Johnny’s and put the final touches on his garden map while our local food simmered on the stove in the evenings.
I can’t forget to mention how much I enjoyed the opportunity to meet some of our local producers when they came to visit during the Challenge. It is wonderful to put a face with a name and a flavor and to thank them personally for the important work that they do every day!
2 responses so far ↓
adobrow // March 16, 2009 at 8:17 am |
I couldn’t agree more with the concept of localizing the menu; that is the practice underlying my feelings that in order for us to EatLocal, we need to BuyLocal. (Reminder, local food does not drop from the sky into one’s pantry.)
So yesterday during the week’s shopping, I noted food purchases as either local nor not, as labeled by the co-op. No weighing, no quantities, even, i.e. meat local? one tick mark, bananas local? no tick mark . I really wanted to get an overall sense of how easy it is to access local products.
Well, it was pretty easy to get to 75% local to provide for the week’s groceries. Now, my family is pretty on-board with all this eat-local-noise I admit; however, my ABILITY to find local versions of 75% of our food items was a pretty impressive feat made possible by the co-op’s shelf choices.
The local was there. It was up to me to buy it.
penelopedia // March 16, 2009 at 3:23 pm |
The challenge may be over, but while grocery shopping this weekend I found myself looking more carefully than ever at which products have a locally produced option. Dinner last night was hamburgers (local – Thousand Hills Cattle Co.) on hard rolls from the Econofoods bakery with local hydroponic lettuce leaves from the co-op. Bongards cheese and Whole Grain Milling Co. tortilla chips filled out the meal. Only the pickle relish and mustard weren’t local.
And we picked up information about several of the local CSAs on Saturday. How lucky we are to have such an array of wonderful options.