Articles and Information

10 Steps to Eating Locally
By Tammie Ortlieb

• Buy or check out the following books from your local library:
  
  • Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith & J. B. Mackinnon
  • Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
  • Eat Here: Reclaiming Homegrown Pleasures in a Global Supermarket by Brian Halwell
  Glean starter information from these great websites:
  • www.eatlocalchallenge.com
  • www.100milediet.org
  • www.localharvest.org
  • www.locavores.com
  • www.sustainabletable.org

• Know that some stands gather foods from area farmers and some are run by the farmers themselves.
• Ask plenty of questions such as whether they use chemicals on their fields or if they have frozen produce available year round.
• Visit larger farms that specialize in one item (I have a wonderful blueberry farm less than twenty minutes from my house).

• Start an indoor herb garden in some window pots
• Work a couple of tomato plants in among perennials
• Sit a pepper plant on your apartment balcony
• Take advantage of a suburban plot by dedicating one corner to a theme garden—tomatoes, cilantro, and jalepenos for salsa; garlic, basil, tomatoes, and peppers for a spaghetti garden; strawberries, melons, and raspberries for fruit salad

• Some markets and locally owned natural food stores stock produce from area farmers
• Check out area businesses. I have a great winery just half an hour down the road. All the nearby stores carry its wines and sparkling juices.

• Many cities have community gardens that are shared by area residents.
• Some urban areas are sprucing up empty lots by converting them into the community garden concept.
• You might even find a friend or someone in need of a little money who has some land they would consider renting for gardening purposes.

• Gardeners often have surplus veggies to hand out to appreciative friends and neighbors.
• You might suggest an exchange—some of your tomatoes for some of her zucchini.
• Or do some babysitting in exchange for a few cucumbers and a bowl full of green beans.

Try www.freecycle.org for canning supplies and freezer containers (this is a national recycling system with local chapters, members offer up goods they are finished with in exchange for the satisfaction of keeping the items out of landfills).

Subscribe to a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program

• Better known as subscription farming, community supported agriculture is a relatively new concept with deepest roots in the Great Lakes region, New England, and the Mid-Atlantic states
• The following is an excerpt from the USDA website on Alternative Farming Systems:

  In basic terms, CSA consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or spiritually, the community's farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production. Typically, members or "share-holders" of the farm or garden pledge in advance to cover the anticipated costs of the farm operation and farmer's salary. In return, they receive shares in the farm's bounty throughout the growing season, as well as satisfaction gained from reconnecting to the land and participating directly in food production. Members also share in the risks of farming, including poor harvests due to unfavorable weather or pests. By direct sales to community members, who have provided the farmer with working capital in advance, growers receive better prices for their crops, gain some financial security, and are relieved of much of the burden of marketing.

• Check out www.localharvest.org/csa for participating farms in your area.

Find your 100 mile circle

• Go to www.100milediet.org to determine your 100 miles.
• Plot out on a local road map some of the cities within that 100 miles.
• Get real familiar with even the smallest towns within your circle—some of the best kept produce secrets come from the tiniest of towns.

Get to know what's in season and when

• Don't expect to eat tomatoes year round. The quality and fuel expense is just not worth it.
• Get back in touch with eating seasonally.
• Be like the little kid at Christmas. Anticipate that first taste of asparagus in the spring, count down the days, mark them off on your calendar, and when the moment comes, revel in it!

Article: Eat Local: Living the 100 Mile Diet

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Tammie Ortlieb is a freelance writer with a Masters Degree in Developmental Psychology. Her work has appeared in VegNews, Veggie Life, Vegetarian Baby and Child Online Magazine, and Mothering.com. She resides in southwest Michigan with her omnivorous husband, three terrific teenagers- two veg, one wannabe-, and a you-tell-em-like-it-is-sister future green revolutionist fabulous fourth grader.