Why eat local

There are several compelling reasons to go local:

Health of the Environment: Most of us have already thought about how organic farming methods protect the Earth from the attack of corporate petro-pesticide farming. Some people are now beginning to question the value of organic foods grown and marketed by major corporations. A study in the March 2005 Food Policy calculated that the extra miles that organic food travels on its path to our plate creates environmental damage that equals and sometimes outweighs the benefits of buying organic.

Buying our food from local farms offers us a way to resist the increasingly big-business practices of branded organics. Local farming also protects the biodiversity of the earth, fighting against the increasing monoculture of corporate organic. And when we buy local produce and meats, we give those with local open space (such as farms and pastures) an economic reason to keep our community green.

Health of the Body: While standard produce has been cold-stored and in transit for days or weeks, local produce purchased from the Co-op, farmer’s market, and CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) has often been picked within 24 hours of purchase. This freshness affects not only the taste of our food but its nutritional value as well. The longer produce waits after harvest, the more vitamins are lost. Shipping requires that fruits and vegetables be bred to sit around without rotting. Local farmers grow a wider variety of produce, selected more for taste and nutrition than for transportability or shelf-life. Because of that variety, it is unnecessary for even non-organic small farmers to use the massive amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides upon which non-organic corporate farms rely.

The differences are not only seen in produce. A growing body of research suggests that traditionally-produced foods such as eggs from free-range hens and beef from grass-fed cattle are also healthier for us.

Health of the Spirit: Buying local keeps us in touch with the seasons, giving us foods at the peak of taste. Without worries of transnational and transcontinental shipping, local peaches can be so ripe that they fall apart as you eat them and local melons ripen on the vine until the last possible moment. Buying local connects us with the people and events of our community. When we chat with the farmer who brings apples to market and have a conversation with the baker who makes our bread, we learn something about where our food dollars go. Knowing the stories behind our food contributes to our enjoyment of meals.

Health of the Local Economy: Eating local means more money goes into the local economy. According to a study by the New Economics Foundation in London, a dollar spent at a locally-owned business such as the Co-op generates twice as much income for the local economy as the same purchase at a national chain. Of course, buying local also supports local providers, keeping their farms and businesses viable. This in turn supports responsible land development.

Sign up

Are you ready to accept the 2006 Takoma Eat Local Challenge?

Are you willing to pay attention to where your food comes from and make as much of your diet local as possible?

Then, please join us!

All you need to do is send an e-mail to: TakomaEatLocal[at]yahoo[dot]com

In your e-mail, please include:

1. Your name(s) as you would like it to appear on the Challenge website

2. Your personal website (if you would like us to link to you)


Thanks.

What is the Challenge

We invite everyone to join us in taking the Takoma Eat Local Challenge: pay attention to where your food comes from and make as much of your diet local as possible.

We hope that by participating in the Challenge, we will all learn more about what is available locally and find it easier to incorporate more local food into our diets even after the Challenge has passed.


The specifics of your Challenge are up to you.

1. What's your definition of “local” for this challenge?

The Locavores use a 100-mile radius around their home to define local foods. Others choose to eat what is grown within the watershed (in our case, the Chesapeake Bay). You could define local as anything grown in the county, within the state, or even within the region. We plan to accept as local things labeled as such at the TPSS Co-op (which uses a 150-mile radius) and everything sold at both the Takoma Park and Silver Spring Farmer’s Markets.


2. What exemptions will you claim?

Although the strictest way of following the challenge would be to limit your diet to foods grown locally, you might choose to add foods that are not grown here but are produced in the area. Perhaps you’ll decide to purchase tortillas made by Moctec, bread made by Spring Mill, coffee roasted at Mayorga, or beer produced in Silver Spring by Hook and Ladder.

There are some things in our daily diets that are hard to find locally. Foods and spices that weigh little and do not need refrigeration are not as costly to the environment to ship. Although our family will be forgoing bananas and orange juice, we might continue to use salt and black pepper. Others may choose to purchase black tea or cinnamon. If you decide to do so, consider purchasing Fair Trade. Another way of mitigating some of the environmental damage of non-local purchases is to take advantage of the bulk aisle at the Co-op and bring your own containers.


3. For how long and to what degree do you want to challenge yourself?

The folks at Locavores decided to challenge themselves to eat only local foods for a month. Gary Paul Nabhan, who helped launch this movement with his book Coming Home to Eat: The Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods, set his goal as an entire year. Liz at www.PocketFarm.com suggests cooking one local dinner a week for the 12 weeks of summer. We are planning to challenge ourselves with one week of a strict all locally-grown diet and then see if we can keep going for the rest of the month adding locally-made items such as Olive Tree hummus and Amma’s chapati. We may also add a few additional exemptions including bulk olive oil and fair-trade chocolate.

You don't have to set your goal to eat every meal completely locally. You could set a goal of having some local products at each dinner, having one local meal a week, or even hosting a one-time only weekend picnic with local foods.

Welcome

Welcome to the Takoma Eat Local Challege 2006.

Please take a look around, learn more about the value of local foods in our lives, check out where to find local foods, browse our recipies, read the plans and stories of some of those who have accepted the Challenge, and follow follow the links to meet the larger Eat Local community.

And of course, we hope you'll decide to take the Challenge!

As this is a community challenge and a community effort, we hope you'll add your comments and suggest additional materials to enrich this site.

We hope you enjoy your visit.