So, here I am again the prodigal blogger, back from another long hiatus to report on how our experiment worked out with eating only from our market finds and our pantry for 21 days. In a word, failed. But that is too simplistic an assessment, because we learned a lot from the experiment and in that regard it was a huge success! So what did we learn?
Plan ahead: One of the primary reasons that we only made it to day 9 was because we ran out of a staple (butter) and had to go to the store for it. Once in the store, Hubby saw several other things that appealed to him. He arrived home with 2 full bags.
Plan ahead: Yup, that again, and this time I mean with regards to your meals. Taking some of your free time on a day off to prep a few things ahead that keep well or can be frozen and defrosted quickly will save you from those temptations that occur on the days when meetings run late, traffic is snarled up or for one reason or another you arrive home late and/or exhausted and just don't feel like preparing a meal. This is where we ran into downfall #2 on day 11 when it was my turn to cook and I just didn't have it in me. So a quick pop into a convenience store on the way home yielded a rising crust pizza. I consoled myself with the fact that it was at least vegetarian.
These next few are going to sound a bit trite, but they are true and applicable. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Don't give up if your attempts to eat local run into some stumbling blocks. This is bound to happen. You may get a sudden urge for pineapple and, after all, who ever saw a pineapple growing in Maine, or many of the other places in the world where you may find yourself for that matter? Which leads to the next cliche, 'every little bit counts'. If every person ate one locally sourced meal per week we could reduce oil consumption by millions of barrels and carbon emissions by tons! Every week! And also, 'everything in moderation'. There is no substitute for fresh local food in season, but you do have to eat in winter when there isn't much of that readily available, and you also want to develop a lifestyle that is healthy for your body and your mind. If you are driving yourself nuts over all the things that you CAN'T eat or consume, that's not going to be good for you either. It also needs to be something you can sustain and not give up on after 2 weeks or 2 months. So find yourself some Caribbean, free trade, shade grown, organic, locally roasted coffee and cut back on your overall intake. Enjoy it knowing that this small change in your lifestyle is making a difference to your health and to the health of the planet.
When you do go to the grocery store read the labels, even on the produce, especially on the produce, and choose from those things which are sourced from as close as possible. If you live in Pennsylvania, cheese from Michigan is at least more local than cheese from Germany. We also learned that groceries, even large chains, are starting to recognize the demand for more local produce and that if 10 people ask the produce manager of the same store to bring something in, they will, because they know that for the 10 who asked there are another hundred who wouldn't ask, but would buy the product. Another thing about shopping in the grocery is avoiding highly processed foods. These foods represent the most food miles, the most processing and the most packaging which taken together result in the most carbon emissions and the least healthful products to consume.
I had promised you recipes, but we have found that when sticking to the market and pantry we make simple, mostly vegetarian meals of salads, steamed and roasted vegetables and vegetable soups and home-made bread which we just whip up without recipes. When we do use recipes, we simply search by ingredient on Allrecipes.com. This is a great resource and ties in quite nicely with a modern lifestyle. It's also great for finding ways to prepare that interesting new veg from the farmers' market like giant kohlrabi.
To sum it up, I guess I would have to say that the over arching lesson is that when it comes to eating locally, it doesn't have to be an all or nothing approach. That isn't going to get us where we need to be. Because few of us would be able to achieve and maintain over the long haul a lifestyle of 100% local eating, and the alternative of nothing is not an option. We need to find a sustainable lifestyle that most of us can achieve that will result in a large portion of our foods coming from fresh, local, organic sources. In this way we can make a real impact on the overall health of the planet and of course, our own health as well.
