Loca-What?!

My good friend and Spanish professor Kim recently made a comment on my blog, “Every time I see ‘locavore’ I think ‘crazy eater.’ But it means ‘local,’ right?”  Which instantly made me realize that I really haven’t yet explained the thought process behind my blog and my philosophy of eating.  According to Wikipedia, the definition of “locavore” is quite simple: A locavore is a “person interested in eating food that is locally produced, not moved long distances to market. The locavore movement in the United States and elsewhere was spawned as interest in sustainability and eco-consciousness became more prevalent.”  If you want to read more in Wikipedia, I encourage you to visit here.  And here’s a fabulous link which will tell you more about the movement, giving you lots more information about why one would become a locavore.

Locavores generally become so for a few strong reasons.  First, eating in season is delicious, as foods are at their peak of ripeness and aren’t picked green, then transported long distances, then forced to ripen at or just before the supermarket.  Second, our bodies tell us that more delicious foods are more nutritious; we get more bang for our buck, so to speak.  Third, not transporting food long distances saves money and resources, and puts more money directly in the pocket of the farmer growing our food, instead of umpteen middle men, meddling in our meals.  Finally, eating local is a viable way to support a local economy and a small-scale farmer who hasn’t given in totally to corporate farming practices.

I wish I could say that I knew about all this long ago, and decided to make a drastic change for the better.  But my decision to “go locavore” wasn’t sudden; after reading about it, talking about it, finding resources to support it, the change was, well…organic.  Pardon the pun.

I’ve been a serial dieter.  I worked as a waitress in the early ‘90s, and all my indie-music-loving, hard-drinking, alternative friends were vegetarian.  You can’t hang out with a bunch of vegetarians and eat meat without earning disdain, so I became one myself; not out of a love of animals or an eco-consciousness, nor out of health concerns.  I became a vegetarian by default.

For five years, I was perhaps the most unhealthy vegetarian who ever lived.  Mac and cheese, chocolate, all kinds of carbs and fat —by strict definition, vegetarian—were my steady fare.  After waiting tables, I was in grad school, then floating from part-time job to part-time job, moving cross-country and back.  My weight ballooned to being 100 pounds above the top of the range of my recommended BMI.  I ate crap and felt miserable.  Ultimately, I went on a medically supervised liquid fast for four and a half months, then a strictly supervised count-your-calories and exercise regimen thereafter, and lost 100 pounds in a year.  I did a lot of soul-searching while not eating any food.  During this time, I had to come to terms with some of my food issues, and I realized that a serious lack of iron (I was often anemic), protein, and vitamin B12 (of which meat is the richest source) had contributed to my obesity problems.  I still preferred vegetarian fare to meat dishes, but recognized that—somewhat ironically—meat would have to once again become a part of my diet in order for me to eat healthfully.  I also swore permanently off of fast food at that point.  I am proud to say that I have not been to McDonald’s—except to use the restroom—since 1997.

It was around this time that I met my husband.  He is French, and the son of pig farmers.  We visited his family in France several times, and I was reminded of how the French eat very rich foods, but are also very picky about the quality of their food.  His parents and grandmother had lovely vegetable gardens, and cultivated, canned, and preserved without use of chemicals.  The flavors were intense.  Less food was more satisfying.  It made me think about my childhood, and my attitudes toward food.

My parents used me as slave labor in the garden in my younger years, and I of course hated it.  My arms, back and legs ached from weeding, and I always had sunburns in weird spots where my shirt pulled up or my neck was exposed.  It was always hot and humid, and I could smell my own sweat, and the earth, and the plants.  There was never enough breeze.  You thought you were done picking beans, then you would look up again, and there were always a few more to be picked.  The mosquitoes were fearless, even in the middle of the day in this spot next to the woods and river.  The corn leaves left cuts like paper cuts that would burn when the sweat trickled down your legs and arms.  That misery left me with a serious lack of appreciation of how delicious the food was at that time compared to today, unfortunately. My parents both had full time jobs, but somehow we used evenings and weekends in late summer to can beans, pickles, tomatoes and fruit preserves; freeze corn, strawberries, and rhubarb; in fall, to pick turnips and make pies of pumpkin and squash and can grape juice.  Somehow, I didn’t register at the time the changing seasons of vegetables and fruits, and the lusciousness of picking something out of the garden and eating it right at its peak.

When I became pregnant with my son, I realized that I was affecting not only my own body, but also someone else’s body and future health with my food choices.  I started investigating organic sources for food, and focusing on eating more healthfully.  We and three other couples had started a dinner club, and much of our conversation was about the Slow Food movement, enjoying eating slowly and consciously, eating for health, eating for enjoyment, eating in a social context, and searching for environmentally responsible and sustainable food-raising practices.  We bought a bread machine, and my husband began baking all our bread at home (no small feat, considering the average amount of bread generally consumed by the French!).  Not long after this, I began reading more:  Michael Pollan’s books (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food), Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle), and wondering what I could do to change in small, yet measurable, ways.  No, I couldn’t eat entirely local like Barbara Kingsolver’s family’s yearlong experiment.  No, I couldn’t avoid entirely the politics of food by never going to the grocery store again.  But I could do many things:

1.     Eat at home, mostly.  Rarely eat out.  (which also saves money for buying more expensive organic items)

2.     Buy local.  We have a fantastic farmer’s market in the summer months, and a co-op selling local food year-round.  Restaurants have also fortunately started using more local food.

3.     Join a CSA.  Community Supported Agriculture has been around a long time, but has just in the last few years become more organized.  I buy a share in a local farm and during the summer months I get a large box of vegetables every week, delivered to a house just a few blocks away.  I don’t have to slave away in a garden while working full time (which wouldn’t work anyway, since our yard is too shaded by a giant black walnut tree poisonous to most of the veggies I like to grow). The CSA sends me weekly email updates on the farm and recipes.

4.     Join a meat-buying club.  Our club supports the farm directly.  We are invited to a feast at the farm once a year, where we can see the animals grazing contentedly in the open air.  I have progressively stopped buying any meat outside the club; unfortunately, I still have to buy my fish and seafood at a supermarket.

5.     Find alternative ways to get farm-direct products (more in a later post).  I get eggs and goat’s milk from colleagues who have farms.

6.     For those things I can’t avoid going to a supermarket to buy, only buy organic or all-natural products, following Michael Pollan’s rules of five-ingredient limits and only ingredients I could spell in a spelling bee.

Sometimes, I have to make choices that don’t perfectly follow my philosophy.  I consequently do not judge those who don’t have the same philosophy; my path is not easy, and it’s not for everyone (although I do tip my hat to those who make efforts to eat better, even in small, but appreciable ways).  It can be very expensive and time-consuming, especially during the growing season.  But my goal is to incorporate at least one local ingredient in each meal I make for my family (including breakfast!).  Ultimately, I want to know that my food source is close to me, and in turn, I am closer to my food, and all the benefits eating well provides.