Day 30: Wild minded
Posted by kathryn in Sustainablity
Today’s post is the final guest post in 31 Days to a Better Diet. I’m really delighted to feature Katrina from Kale for Sale – talking about being more aware of where you food comes from.
I’m a locavore. Not a wild eyed locavore as the New York Times recently referred to us but a wild minded consumer. I believed I could put healthier food on the table than what was manufactured or delivered from around the world to the corner store. And I was right. I could and I am. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.
I never intended to be a locavore when I began reading labels and choosing the product made closer to home. It was just part of the lent of reducing my carbon footprint; letting go of far away brands I’d been married to for years. In the produce aisle I started buying apples from Washington instead of New Zealand. I’d skip international berries for citrus grown in state. I went cold turkey on bananas.
And then things got serious. I took the Eat Local Challenge to eat locally sourced food for the entire month of September. I’d identified a few store bought local foods and a farmers’ market but I had no idea if we could feed ourselves for a month.
The challenge became a series of choices. We let go of food with multiple ingredients. We began using oil and vinegar instead of bottled salad dressings. I made potato salad without mayonnaise for the first time. We ate home made salsa on mixed greens and arugula instead of chips.
We snacked on almonds, strawberries and figs; foods with single ingredients. We ate vine ripened melons and had yogurt with honey and brown scrambled eggs for breakfast. I made pots of heirloom variety beans, mashed potatoes, slow roasted tomatoes, honey sweetened applesauce.
I joined a CSA for weekly pick ups of food directly off the farm. I got creative. Nothing came in a jar ready to be heated and eaten. This was food untraveled, often with dirt still on its roots. We work, commute. We ate simple. Steamed and sauteed vegetables dressed with olive oil and sea salt were a staple. We ate salads tossed with a different combination every time, bits of cheese with ripe pieces of fruit.
I found a restaurant down the street that served from farms whose names I was beginning to recognize. We were supporting agriculture in our community and didn’t go without for a minute.
The biggest problem became not wasting food. I began freezing the extra. We started taking our lunches to work. We put a face to our food and each meal became a story. Eating manufactured food became unappetizing.
A year later the learning curve has relaxed. Ninety percent of our food is still local but I buy mayonnaise, occasionally drink a diet Coke. I’m learning how to can and have a better idea what seasonal items freeze nicely and taste good prepared on a cold winter day. I’m familiar with the different farmers’ markets and stores with local goods.
Aside from being healthy, our local diet has made me aware of what I put on the table. There are no hidden ingredients, no preservatives. No processing plants, warehouses or middlemen. We eat real food, often with a personal narrative. And then exclaim at how good it all is.
Is there a local food grower or producer in your area that you can support?
Choose at least two foods this week produced closer to home and give them a try. And don’t be surprised if the food comes with a story.
Katrina is a fourth generation native of Northern California and the locavore author of Kale for Sale. Unlike her Grandparents who grew kale for the chickens, she steams it up and calls it dinner.
Woman eating lettuce photograph by Vika Valter and flower photograph by Katrina.
30 August, 2008
Comments
’...real food, often with a personal narrative.’
Well, if that isn’t a good enough reason to put names and faces to where our food comes from, I don’t know what is.
Beautiful, Katrina, as always!
Thanks for your post Katrina. I’m gradually moving towards buying more and more food locally. Over the last two years I’ve become increasingly conscious of buying Australian, our seasons and what “shouldn’t” be available over here at a particular time of year.
However I still find the next step hard. The moving towards buying not just Australian, but truly local to me – what’s grown in the Sydney basin, or NSW at the very least. But I’m going to follow your advice and seek out at least two things this weekend.
Thanks again for your piece – it’s gorgeous.
Great post, thank you. A timely reminder.
We’ve been getting an organic fruit and veg box each week delivered and I love reading their newsletter about what is in season and available. Even so, they aren’t always local and do import from interstate and overseas.
When in stores, I love that now in oz, they put labels up at fresh food stores stating where the produce comes from. I always avoid the asparagus from peru! wtf? and fish from anywhere but australia. Its the best way to eat seasonally. I am already getting excited that it will soon be spring Asparagus season!
Lucy – You always wrap your food in love wherever it comes from.
Kathryn – You are so sweet. Thank you. I’m curious about what two things you’ll find that are local and if you’ll like them and if they taste better or worse than what you usually buy or if they’re less or more expensive. I hope you’ll leave a comment about it.
I’ve found that my body loves eating the foods in their natural seasons. This year the strawberries came in early while it was still a bit cool, cold almost, and I had no appetite for them at all until things warmed up. Then of course I was all over them. But I’d never given it a second a thought before eating local. How wonderful that you naturally are having that dialogue while you shop.
Sue – I had a CSA last year too and for the fruit part of it they once put in imported kiwis. They were delicious but I had to laugh because the whole reason I’d signed up was for the locally grown, support the farm, aspect. And I loved the newsletter too. Kind of a blog on paper.
Asparagus is the same thing from coast to coast here in the spring – everyone waiting for the first leggy stalks. But the grocery stores are haphazard at best when posting where produce comes from. They’re working on it.
It’s wonderful to hear your excitement about finding local food and then noticing when it’s not. Enjoy.
Beautiful post, Katrina, on the journey toward living locally. And it is a journey. Most of us set out only to take a few simple steps. Suddenly, life is better here, in the land of local foods, and we realize that even though we could find our way back to processed foods and fruit shipped in from the Southern Hemisphere, we don’t want to.
Like you, I have relaxed the “rules” a bit. I don’t always make my own butter. I sometimes buy frozen mac and cheese for my kids (ironically, made from a local, organic company). But for the most part, eating local is just the way I live.
Yesterday I went to the local market and had a very simple but lovely ‘locally grown’ experience – there was a small table with a lady selling avocado’s directly from her farm – she had three baskets labelled ‘eat today’, ‘eat in 1-2 days’ and ‘eat in 3-5 days’... it was lovely to buy directly from the grower and talk about the produce… and I bought a small avocado to enjoy on the weekend and one larger one for use during the week!
green bean – And what a journey and education local foods has become. After spending the weekend at Slow Food Nation in San Francisco listening to some of the brightest minds on social equity, global food systems, gmos, climate warming and how vulnerable our food systems are I realize local is only a piece of the puzzle. Important but not the entire enchilada. Ahhh. We live in interesting times.
renee – Your story brings the biggest smile to my face. Putting a face to the food I eat has been such a huge pleasure. The stories nourish my spirit as much as my body. Thank you for sharing it and many more stories of the same to you.
In my eating locally research one thing I’ve uncovered two snippets that are new to me.
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