eating locally

last spring, i really got into eating locally grown and produced food and drinks. i tried to spend a month just eating local foods which proved to be very challenging in april for a few reasons. this spring and summer, we hope to be better prepared in our attempt to support local and sustainable foods. the first part of the learning curve for me was just knowing where and when to get local items. my options were the grocery store (whole foods, mainly), the local farmer's markets that had just begun on weekends, and the farm tour where i picked up a few things. i did not have my own veggie garden but did have lots of herbs thanks to the previous lovers/owners of my house. eating out would not have been possible should i wanted to stay totally local.

A CSA will solve this problem now but we were leaving the country last year so did not join one. We have met many farmers on the Farm Tour over the years that we would love to support by joining their CSA. Hopefully, we can get in early enough this year to join one. I am only at the very beginning of my journey this year.

wouldn't one expect "A southern Season" to carry lots of locally grown items? I did but was hugely disappointed to find labels claiming "north carolina's finest" then the back said, product of georgia. Hu? What? Over and over, again their shelves were full of items with the carolina blue colors but were grown by the bulldogs down south. there is a small section that does carry items grown and bottled/produced in nc. the stamp or label "goodness grows in nc" was helpful for locating items within this store.

one of the challenges for me, personally was getting enough calories and variety in a day, mainly b/c my diet is already limited to non-animal sources of nutrition. this works easier if i can eat whatever is available in the grocery store without a thought to how many miles it had to travel to get there. also, i do eat processed or ready made foods like say, bread from weaver street market's bakery. i didn't attempt to make my own bread products so that left me feeling the need for some bulk. i did eat lots of nuts, as NC grows them well!

Eating local has grown in popularity just in the last year with so many more resources and options being made available across the usa. Some people chose to define eating locally as a day's drive to and from one's residence while others stick to the "100 mile Diet" for items withing 100 miles of one's area. Still others will say that eating foods grown within the state or region is eating locally. What do you think of eating mainly or all local foods?