On Becoming a Locavore...

As the preparer of food for my little family, I think A LOT about what we are eating, how we are eating it, where what we are eating has come from, and so on. Several good books have helped inform some of our family's food choices, but the one I'm currently reading has given me a lot of food for thought! It is "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver (thanks Jeni F for the recommendation). You may recognize Kingsolver's name as she has written many successful novels. However, this book chronicles the experiences of her family as they commit for one year to consume only foods that are grown/made by either themselves or people within their community. She writes in a way that is witty, conversational, honest, and informational as she raises a lot of (what I think to be very valid) concerns about how detached our society is from our original food sources. Many children are being raised to believe that their food truly originates in the grocery store! Not only that, but they are brought up to believe (as many of us adults already do) that they need to have (even deserve to have) whatever food they want in whatever season they want it. Nevermind the fact that little to no fruit grows in our region during the winter months...we just pay to have truckloads of fruits (that have been picked green and fumagated with chemicals, mind you) shipped from all over the world to our doorstep. Sure, maybe it's convenient in one sense, but the cost is much higher than we might think. This convenience uses huge amounts of fuel, results in land being overworked for mass production, upsets local food economies throughout the world, results in foods full of chemicals, and leaves us with cheap imitations of what fresh-off-the-plant produce is really supposed to taste like, among other things. In addition I, personally, think we are missing out on something spiritual by not experiencing the annual cycle of how God determined our food to grow, along with not learning how to preserve it for seasons of scarcity. I mean, that is how peoples have interacted with their food for centuries! Okay, well, I could ramble on and on, but if you're intrigued at all by some of these ideas, then you should check out the book or their website.

So, how do I proceed after reading and stewing over some of this stuff? Well, I've had days of being really hard on myself about how dependent we personally are on our "stuff-shipped-from-all-over-the-world" grocery store. But then I realize that I have to be realistic about what resources we have at our disposal and about the value of baby steps. We continue to seek to learn and to make wise choices with regards to how our food is grown and where it comes from. And while I love the idea of growing and preserving most of our food or buying it from friends, it will take years to really cultivate that kind of lifestyle. In the meantime, I am constructing a mini "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" challenge for our family. For one month, we are going to be locavores (eating only food grown locally). Now, before you are overly impressed, know that we are going to be pretty strategic in choosing the month, and we are going to consider "local" to be a radius of 90 miles from Manhattan so that we can enjoy benefits of my parents' garden. :) We already buy locally raised meat, eggs, milk, and honey so we'll mostly just have to fill in with whatever fruits and veggies are in season. Between our little garden, my parents' garden, the farmers' market, and LaLa's Heirloom Produce we should be able to do it. Right now, I'm consider making July our month of local eating. Want to join us? :) I'll keep you posted.

P.S. In preparation for this month-long challenge, I want to learn to make cheeses (Kingsolver swears that it isn't difficult). Any other Manhattanites want to join me in experimenting?