On Becoming a "Locavore"

I like that term, locavore. It imbues a sense of responsibility, and community, I suppose. I read in the paper yesterday??? Saturday??? One of these past blurs of days??? that Americans and their grocery stores throw away BILLIONS of dollars worth of food each year. It made me just a little sick, because everywhere you turn is a HUGE chain conglommorate for all your processed food needs.

I also read in the paper about a woman in Rockford (see link at right) who is conducting a one year famiy experiment to eat ONLY foods locally grown and raised. She ONLY eats foods within a 100 mile radius of her home. However, she's not the 'weird lady'. She set decent parameters, like allowing chocolate, cooking oils (don't know too many Illinoisians with olive trees in their backyards), a social clause (dinners out), and the right to provide foods for her kids if she feels they're lacking something they need nutritionally that isn't available locally. While I like her idea and her parameters, I can't just go hard core like she did, but I'm going to modify our lifestyle here a bit, and ease into it.

The idea of eating local isn't new, it's what people just used to do. Now, I feel like we're slowly poisoning ourselves with chemicals, preservatives, and the like. Food loses nutrients the further it has to travel to get to the grocery store and eventually your plate, and most of it winds up being wasted anyway.

Next year, I plan on gardening. With the move, this year just wasn't my year for various reasons. But, I do plan on cultivating a decent vegetable, and hopefully herb garden next spring. For now, I'll just have to go shopping in my parent's garden, and 'borrow' from their neighbors.

I've also been trying to hit up farmer's markets, and am kicking myself for not getting more strawberries when we went picking and freezing them for winter. I'll have to do it with the blueberries, and I DEFINITELY want to relearn the canning process that my mom and grandmother used to do. I'll have to learn greenbeans (I think it's too late for them, right ma?), and applesauce and my mom makes a mean array of jellies, my favoirte of which is a Damsen Plum. It's a lost art, but I want to do it. Take some vacation in the fall mom, and plan on a sleepover in Jack's room!

I'm also in the market for a food dehydrator, if anyone sees one at a garage sale, let me know!

My mom said I'm making my kids weird. That stemmed from Jack saying, "Mom, I don't ever want to be fat." We have conversations about how McDonalds and the like isn't healthy for you, but OKAY once in a while, and all 3 kids have seen this past summer the importance of exercise during the course of my triathlon training. I don't think I'm making them weird, I do allow the occasional transgression into a greasy vat of fries, but I DO feel I'm making them conscientious about what they put into their mouths to fuel their bodies.

With the rising costs of food at the stores, the rising gas prices, and 2 mortgages (we got an offer on the other house by the way, that wasn't worth a pot to piss in, so keep praying for us!), I want to start supporting the local farmer/businesses. Unfortunately, organic food at farmers markets is damn near double the traditional farmers and out of budget for now, but when I do have to visit the grocery stores, I try to buy our 'staples' in organic form, if I can. It's actually even a little cheaper sometimes.

My neighbor makes her own breads and buns and things like that, so I'll have to get her recipes and bump some ideas off her, for sure.

So now I've got even more goals for my personal growth, and the general growth and health of the family. In addition to maybe wanting to do another triathlon this summer (gotta get a decent bike first!), I'm going to try and be more of a 'locavore'. Any thoughts, suggestions, and comments are welcome.

I've also put up some interesting links regarding local farming on the right. If you have more, I'd love to check them out. As it is, I kinda borrowed them from the newspaper anyway!

One caveat among many though...I do REFUSE to give up my morning coffee, local or not! Call it addiciton, or call it 3 kids, caffeine can sometimes be a mom's best friend!