The September 2007 Eat Local Challenge: Many ways to participate

Beginning this Saturday it is time again for the Eat Local Challenge. If you are not familiar with this yearly event put on by the Eat Local Challenge Website and Locavores, I encourgae you to do so. I would say my husband and I have done really well this year eating locally but for the month of September we are going to step it up. It's a great challenge as it's only a month and everyone can do something even as simple as having one all local meal a week. Here are the many ways you can participate straight from the Eat Local Challenge Folks. (http://www.eatlocalchallenge.com/).

For the third year in a row, the Eat Local Challenge website, in association with the Locavores, is hosting a month-long Eat Local Challenge. This year, the challenge is in September with an emphasis on canning and preserving the bounty of September for the winter months.
During this time, nationwide participants focus on what foods are available in our local foodshed and how we can support our local farmers. This year, we have received many inquiries on the ways that supporters of the Eat Local Challenge can participate. While the original challenge premise involves eating as much food from your local foodshed as possible during the month, there are many ways that you can participate.
Here are just a few:
1) Commit to eating local for 30 days in September. To do this, define what "local" means to you -- be it a 100-mile radius or your entire state or region. Then designate any exceptions, define any extra goals you have during the month, and sign up on the Locavores website so that you can be counted.
2) Write about your experience with eating locally on your blog. What's it like in your area? Which parts of eating locally are easy, and which are difficult? What advice do you have for others? If you are participating, email us and tell us what state you live in. Then tag all posts with the term "EatLocalChallenge" so that we can find your posts. Want to show your support? Add an Eat Local Challenge logo to your site!
3) Take photos of local food, local farmers' markets and local farmers and post them to our Flickr group.
4) Make one local meal a week in September. Liz from Pocket Farm heads up the One Local Summer project which asks people to eat a local meal each week during the summer. You can participate in a modified One Local Summer by committing to preparing one local meal for your family weekly through September. Let us know how you do!
5) Submit original content about your eat local experience to the Eat Local Challenge blog to be posted during September. Email us your content or blog thoughts. All posts will be subject to our Creative Commons license.
6) Attend a farmers' market each week in September. Don't know how to find one? Try this link or this link.
7) Can, freeze, or dehydrate your local summer bounty so that you can spread your local eating into the winter.
8) Ask your supermarket manager where your meat, produce and dairy is coming from. Remember that market managers are trained to realize that for each person actually asking the question, at least 7 people want to know the same answer. Make a difference!
9) Find a local CSA and sign-up!
10) Find out what restaurants in your area support local farmers. You can do this by asking the restaurants about their ingredients directly, or by asking your favorite farmers what restaurant accounts they have.
11) Learn more about a farmer or a local producer by talking to them. Ask them about what they grow, what challenges they have had, why they choose to produce or grow what they are growing.
12) Use this tool to draw a 100-mile radius around your home and then use this tool to find a local provider.
13) Start simple and small by replacing one food item a week. Find out who in your area roasts their coffee beans. Try replacing your fruit during September with locally grown fruit. Buy only locally grown tomatoes. It might be easier than you think!
14) Commit to learning more about the implications of growing food on our enivronment, health and economy by reading some of the most popular and influential writings in this area, including:
Writings by Michael Pollan, especially Power Steer or The Omnivore's Dilemma.
The Pleasures of Eating by Wendell Berry.
Articles written for Grist by Tom Philpott.
Plenty by Alisa Smith and JB MacKinnon.
15) Take your kids to a u-pick in your area. Can't find one? Call your local farmers' market association to see if they know of any.
16) Host a local foods potluck. Have friends over and invite them to bring foods made from locally grown products. A great way to learn about different locally grown products.
Why do we choose to eat local? Read our 10 Reasons to Eat Local.
Interested in eating local and need some tips? Read our tips for the Eat Local Challenge.
If you would like to read about challenges that we have participated in, please refer to the list below.
August 2005 Eat Local ChallengeMay 2006 Eat Local Challenge2006 One Local Summer Challenge2006 100-Mile Thanksgiving Challenge April 2007 Penny-Wise Eat Local Challenge
Let us know how we can help you eat local in September!

If you would like to participate in this challenge with Tim & I, please let me know, we can have our own local virtual group!

“local” is: “within a day's leisurely drive of our homes. This distance is entirely arbitrary. But then," she says, "so was the decision made by others long ago that we ought to have produce from all around the world.”

-Joan Gussow - local food pioneer

Great Article!

If you've been reading this blog for awhile and have noticed my links to other sites, you've probably read the name Polyface Farms or Joel Salatin. Polyface is a family owned, multi-generational, pasture-based, beyond organic, local-market farm and informational outreach in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. Joel raises grass-fed beef, pastured poultry, rabbits and more on a model diversified farmstead and is sort of the "guru" when it comes to this type of farming. I recently read this article about him in Business Week, it's amazing if you have a few minutes to devote to it.

A New Push to Make Farming Profitable
At the forefront of a revolution in the way small farms operate is celebrity farmer Joel Salatin. His new business model and innovative techniques are catching on with farmers across the country
by David E. Gumpert

View Slide Show
We have seen new business models emerge over the last decade for dozens of industries including travel, advertising, and publishing—all relying heavily on technology-based improvements in productivity and changes in distribution associated with the Internet.
Now we may be seeing the emergence of a new business model for small farms, which have lagged the transformation of other industries and continued to rely heavily on commodity pricing and middlemen distributors.
At the forefront of this revolution is the 10-employee, $700,000-a-year Polyface Farm, a 550-acre producer of beef, chickens, and pork in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. A family farm run by its second generation owner, Joel Salatin, Polyface is thriving thanks to a combination of innovative use of technology to encourage livestock mobility, and streamlined distribution to bypass middlemen and instead sell products directly to consumers.
A New Way of Farming
Salatin's unusual techniques for making his small farm financially viable have become so popular that he offers two weekend seminars each year in which he teaches 30 farmers and wannabes all his tricks, "including dressing chickens, grazing management, handling egg layers, composting, and soil management," he says. The sessions, at $550 a person (excluding transportation and lodging), are sold out two months in advance. "You wouldn't believe how many people come here who are desperate to exit their 'Dilbert' cubicles," he says.
What these student-farmers learn is an approach to farming that is much different from what many of the 400,000 to 500,000 family farms still in existence use today (see BusinessWeek.com, 3/19/07, "Choosing the Family Farm").
On the production side, Salatin eschews the commonly used confinement techniques and grain feeding of animals in favor of keeping his cattle, chicken, and pigs grazing outdoors, within small pastures enclosed by light, high-tech, electrified fencing and portable chicken coops that are easily moved daily by one or two people to ensure the animals always have fresh grass. Chickens are fed grains as well, but only those produced by neighboring farms, and without the antibiotics typically mixed in with animal feed.
Tree Farming
"With this technology, you can feed the world," says Salatin, watching a group of 1,200 Rhode Island Red chickens grazing in a small enclosed area of pasture on a recent morning. The mobile technology, he says, allows the animals' manure systematically to fertilize the pastures, enabling Polyface Farm to have about four times as many cattle grazing its lands as on a conventional farm—and thus save on feed costs.
Salatin combines conventional and innovative approaches to lower the farm's costs, especially energy costs. The pastures, barn, and farmhouse are situated on land below a nearby pond that "feeds the farm" using 15 miles of piping, says Salatin. He also methodically harvests the 450 acres of woodlands, using the lumber to construct farm buildings.
The pasture-based feeding of the animals leads to better tasting meat and eggs than is possible with enclosed, grain-based feedlots, he argues. And the grass helps produce meat that is lower in saturated fats and higher in polyunsaturated fats than conventional meat.
Half a Steer at a Time
He credits the high quality with enabling him to build a loyal following of consumer and restaurant customers (see BusinessWeek.com, 12/20/06, "Whole Foods and the Celebrity Farmer"). His e-mail-based "metropolitan buying clubs" have grown to 900 families within a 100-mile radius, from just 200 families two years ago. Polyface Farm delivers meat eight times a year to specific drop points in the region, where members pick it up.
"The bugaboo in direct-farm-marketing is coming in from the garden and taking care of your customers," he says. "The beauty of this is it is e-mail-based and there is no middleman." In addition, the farm continues to sell to about 400 families that prefer to trek out to Polyface Farm and make their purchases directly, often buying a quarter or half a steer at a time. "These are our most militantly loyal diehards," says Salatin.
If It's Long Distance, Don't Bother Calling
The growing demand from legions of direct customers has led Polyface to lease an additional 700 acres of pasture over the last three years. Salatin says the profits from the weekend-farmer seminars as well as sales from instructional books he's written "are allowing us to make the investment without having to resort to loans," which are another bugaboo of traditional farming.
One thing Salatin won't do as part of its growth kick is to accept orders for shipping to areas outside his Virginia community (see BusinessWeek.com, 7/18/07, "Buy Local—With Town Currency"). "We want [prospective customers] to find farms in their areas and keep the money in their own community," he says. "We think there is strength in decentralization and spreading out rather than in being concentrated and centralized."
(See our slide show for more on Polyface Farm's innovative production methods.)
David E. Gumpert covers business/health issues and also writes the biweekly What Entrepreneurs Need to Know column.

"If you are a person of conviction, a person of action, you will begin wtih one step, a second step, then a third. New habits are formed one tiny change at a time"
Joel Salatin

Local Food Event

Event at Blue Bird Bistro with the Sustainable Table Tour last Thursday was amazing, see pictures below.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sustainabletable/sets/72157601628195654
About the set13 photos 16 views
A sustainable meeting place in Kansas City, MO.

If you have a chance to go to this event in Lawrence this Thursday you must. Tim and I will be attending the luncheon on Thurs. hosted by Blue Bird Bistro and the folks travelling the country from sustainable table. You can read about them below and if possible meet them in person Thursday.

LOCAL BURGER and FILMS FOR ACTION of Lawrence
to co-sponsor a night of organic short films
with SUSTAINABLE TABLE
at 7 p.m., Aug. 23, at LIBERTY HALL
Lawrence, Kan. – Sustainable Table (http://www.sustainabletable.org/) is traveling across the country with “The Eat Well Guided Tour of America.” The group is stopping in select U.S. cities from Hollywood to New York to celebrate local food and the people who grow it.
While visiting Lawrence, the group will team with Local Burger and Films for Action to present Rural Route Film Festival’s “Go Organic!” film series, a collection of short documentary films highlighting positive sustainable and organic practices that are growing in momentum in communities all across the country. The event starts at 7 p.m., Aug. 23, at Liberty Hall, 644 Massachusetts St., Lawrence.
Hilary Brown’s Local Burger, 714 Vermont St., Lawrence, will provide free organic and local food for the event. A $5 admission will cover costs and support Films for Action’s ongoing efforts to raise awareness about positive local and organic food solutions.
Award-winning sustainability journalist Simran Sethi, Lacy Haynes Professional Chair at the University of Kansas School of Journalism, will speak at the event. Sethi is the host/writer for the Sundance Channel’s program, “The Green.”
“With public awareness growing about the dangers of genetically modified foods, factory farming, corporately patented terminator seeds, and our current agricultural system’s dependence on increasingly expensive fossil fuels, communities are looking for more healthy and sustainable alternatives,” says Tim Hjersted, director of the Films for Action project.
“These films provide an inspiring look at the innovation and widespread efforts that are taking place all over the country to create more localized and healthy food economies. We’re happy to support and raise awareness for many of the positive local initiatives that are happening here in Lawrence right now.”

"The road to health is paved with good ingestion."
David M Lawrence

I'm Still Here....

Hello friends, sorry for the lack of posts recently. I have been off taking some computer training which I refuse to bore anyone with on this blog! I still have a great post brewing, by now it is simmering and will try to get to it today. Tim & I leave on vacation Saturday morning with my family. Hello beach and sand and Philadelphia hoagies!! It is much needed that is for sure. Sometimes despite my best efforts to keep Tim & I stress free, life seems to get the best of us so some time on the beach playing with our niece in the sand is much needed.
I am reading an amazing book right now ( I will post about that later too) about the life of Alice Waters (owner and all around rockin'lady of Chez Panisse) and her dedication to serving only locally grown food in her restaurant, so, I thought I would post some of the reasons why we eat local and why I think it is so important. Of course if you can commit to eating organic that is an amazing step but if you are ready to take it to the next level, consider adding a few local ingredients to your diet. Here are some reasons why....

10 Reasons to Eat Local Food
Eating local means more for the local economy. According to a study by the New Economics Foundation in London, a dollar spent locally generates twice as much income for the local economy. When businesses are not owned locally, money leaves the community at every transaction.

Locally grown produce is fresher. While produce that is purchased in the supermarket or a big-box store has been in transit or cold-stored for days or weeks, produce that you purchase at your local farmer's market has often been picked within 24 hours of your purchase. This freshness not only affects the taste of your food, but the nutritional value which declines with time.

Local food just plain tastes better. Ever tried a tomato that was picked within 24 hours? 'Nuff said.

Locally grown fruits and vegetables have longer to ripen. Because the produce will be handled less, locally grown fruit does not have to be "rugged" or to stand up to the rigors of shipping. This means that you are going to be getting peaches so ripe that they fall apart as you eat them, figs that would have been smashed to bits if they were sold using traditional methods, and melons that were allowed to ripen until the last possible minute on the vine.

Eating local is better for air quality and pollution than eating organic. In a March 2005 study by the journal Food Policy, it was found that the miles that organic food often travels to our plate creates environmental damage that outweighs the benefit of buying organic.

Buying local food keeps us in touch with the seasons. By eating with the seasons, we are eating foods when they are at their peak taste, are the most abundant, and the least expensive.

Buying locally grown food is fodder for a wonderful story. Whether it's the farmer who brings local apples to market or the baker who makes local bread, knowing part of the story about your food is such a powerful part of enjoying a meal.

Eating local protects us from bio-terrorism. Food with less distance to travel from farm to plate has less susceptibility to harmful contamination.

Local food translates to more variety. When a farmer is producing food that will not travel a long distance, will have a shorter shelf life, and does not have a high-yield demand, the farmer is free to try small crops of various fruits and vegetables that would probably never make it to a large supermarket. Supermarkets are interested in selling "Name brand" fruit: Romaine Lettuce, Red Delicious Apples, Russet Potatoes. Local producers often play with their crops from year to year, trying out Little Gem Lettuce, Senshu Apples, and Chieftain Potatoes.
Supporting local providers supports responsible land development. When you buy local, you give those with local open space - farms and pastures - an economic reason to stay open and undeveloped.

The continued existence of the family farm demonstrates that there may yet be hope, even in the midst of strip malls and fast food joints: hope for slow food and all that ought to imply—Food grown organically by people who live and work nearby; food you can buy directly from the grower; food that will be prepared, served, and shared by families and friends.
Alice Waters - Owner of Chez Panisse and creator of the Edible Schoolyard