Locavores

[jaine]

Anyone else out there eating mostly local food?
Becoming a "locavore" is probably the best thing that ever happened to my food budget!

here's a graph of my food spending

(Or Whole Foods was the worst thing that ever happened to my food budget ... depending on your perspective!)

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Like many, we have a garden of fruit, vegetables, and herbs. (No space for grains, except occasionally sweet corn.) That's as local as I can get. We fish a local river. But we do not preserve a whole lot, so once the garden is finished and cold, slow-fishing days are here, we eat mostly without regard to where the food comes from. In most of the US eating local all year requires food storage & preservation as few crops are grown through winter. I do make a point to do a little canning, a very little freezing, even less drying, and each year grow either winter squash or sweet potatoes which store very well without any processing.

Is there anything you miss that is not obtainable locally? How local is local for you?

[feh]

We've started buying some meat from a local farmer. Grass-fed beef instead of the corn-fed stuff you'll find at the supermarket. Better for the environment and better for the local businessman, but more expensive.

[elessar78]

My father-in-law is a vegetable farmer so we get our veggies from him. We belong to his "CSA" which is community supporter agriculture. Customers buy a "subscription" for the year and they get to come to the farm weekly from May through November and pick up fresh vegetables. Since they are farmers they have other "producers" in their network. We buy local meat and dairy, if we can.

Feh: try not to worry about the cost. There's nothing that says that food should be cheap. Not to sound like a snob, but cheap food is a myth. There's a price we pay in terms of our environment and personal health. Wife and I had to make a conscious decision to eat more healthy and accepted the fact that hire costs may come with it. We haven't really noticed a dramatic increase, so it's a win win.

[feh]

Feh: try not to worry about the cost. There's nothing that says that food should be cheap. Not to sound like a snob, but cheap food is a myth. There's a price we pay in terms of our environment and personal health. Wife and I had to make a conscious decision to eat more healthy and accepted the fact that hire costs may come with it. We haven't really noticed a dramatic increase, so it's a win win.

Oh, I don't worry about the cost. I was just pointing out that it is more expensive (at least for us). It's a price we are willing to pay.

[jaine]

The three things I LOVE that I can't get locally are Wensleydale cheese, cashews, and macadamia nuts! I still treat myself to those occasionally though.

The kind of stuff that I can get locally (grass-fed meat, vegetables, and fruit) is 90% of my diet anyway so it works out pretty well for me! I'm on a special grain-free, sugar-free diet for acne and it's working great and giving me more energy too, so I'm sticking to it.

Buying locally is a lot less expensive for me if I compare food of the same quality! The only supermarket near me to get grass-fed meat and organic produce is Whole Foods, and they charge at least 2 or 3 times what I'm paying when I buy the same quality of food directly from nearby farms.

But if I were to relax my nutritional requirements (for example if I started to eat more grain fed meat, or conventional produce, or make grains & beans a bigger part of my diet) then yes I could potentially pay less per month for food even if it's not local. I feel like the health benefits are worth it though! Grass-fed meat has a better omega 3 ratio which lowers the risk of heart disease!

[cptacek]

Well, we get a hog butchered once a year and a steer butchered once a year. Both are grain fed and they both taste great to me!

I have a garden this year after taking a hiatus for the past two. Can't wait! Corn, broccoli, onions, potatoes, zucchini, spaghetti squash, eggplant, cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbage and sugar snap peas. Though the bugs are destroying the broccoli and cabbage. Hopefully our apple tree produces and doesn't get worms in it this year like it did last year.

My BIL and SIL have chickens, and we usually get eggs from them.

But, other than the meat, we have been eating mostly from the local IGA. I still need to get a canner for my garden bounty so maybe it will last and not just rot on my countertop