Keep It Fresh and Local

For the past month or so I've been reading Barbra Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and have been inspired by it. In the book Kingsolver and her family resolve to try to eat only local foods that they, or people they know, have grown. This includes all fruit and meat. It's a bit commitment, one that I'm not willing to undertake but I can see the reasoning in why she did it.

I consider myself a pretty eco-friendly chick. I buy organic foods because I believe in sustainable farming and avoiding the use of pesticides is important to my health and the health of everyone else. Kinggsolvers book has opened my eyes a bit to trying to be a bit more conscientious of where my organic foods are coming from. Last week I opened a container of organic salad mix that I had bought earlier that day to make dinner. Some of the lettuce had already started to wilt and begun to transform into a yucky green slime. I flipped over the container to read the label and it turned out my greens had come all the way from Minnesota. I know I don't feel so fresh after the trek from Minnesota to Massachusetts so why should my leafy greens?

I've started to try to figure out where a lot of the food I eat came from, and let me tell you it's hard. At most you can find where something is being distributed from but where the actual tomato or cheese originated is a bit of mystery on most labels. I am so ready for the farmers market to start.

I'm not quiet ready to kick off my shoes and run around bare-foot like a crazy hippy but I am going to start to try to eat local dairy products and breads. Nobody can argue how much better fresh picked produce is, so for now I'm ready to be a bit more mindful of how far my greens had to travel for a wonderful salads.