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Subscribe to RSSTwo weeks ago, in an attempt to eat healthier and support small, local businesses, I signed up for the 30-Day No Grocery Store Challenge. They say that if you can do something for a month, you’ll have formed a habit. By shopping locally for healthy food, I’m hoping to do something that’s both good for my body and good for my community. I found the first week to be a fun adventure into my local farmers market and food co-op. However, just as I was about to think it would be smooth sailing the whole way through, we hit a bump in the road.
Our local farmers market is held for five hours every Saturday during the season. Normally, this is a pretty convenient schedule, especially for most working people. However, if it’s August and you’re planning to be camping for the weekend, it’s a bit of a problem. Having to miss it for a week put a wrinkle in my new-found shopping habits. It also reminded me that it would be more difficult to shop locally come October when the market closed for the season.
I mentioned my quandary to a friend who recommended a large produce stand about 40 minutes from my house. The stand-store is owned by local farmers and is open year-round. It mainly sells the produce those farmers grow, and supplements that with food from other in-state (and a couple of out-of-state) farmers. Although their produce wasn’t organic, most of it was local and the prices were incredible.
For instance, the hormone-free, antibiotic-free eggs they sold were $2.50 per dozen. That’s a better deal than I’m getting through the dairy home delivery and less than half of what I saw offered at the farmers market. But, it was a trek for me to get there, and when you add in what I spent on gas, suddenly those eggs aren’t so cheap.
I’m discovering that in my little corner of the world there are a lot of options for eating healthily and locally (at least in the summer). But, there are bound to be trade-offs. Generally speaking, I’ve had to choose between convenience and cost. Some of the local produce stands and farmers markets offer great deals, but they tend to have more limited hours or are located a bit out of town.
The food co-op is terrific and convenient, as is the home milk delivery, but they’re also a bit more expensive. If I’m going to keep this up, I’m going to need to get smart and figure out ways to make the most of the less convenient shopping experiences and spend money at the pricier vendors in moderation.
While budgetary and time constraints have proven to be the challenge this little adventure promised to be, I’ve enjoyed eating better. There’s almost a feeling of relief, knowing you’re eating foods that are good for you. I’m even finding that there are options for eating out that include eating locally and healthily.
While visiting my mom this past week, we decided to grab some dinner but wanted to keep to the spirit of the challenge and avoid the old drive-thru. She knew of a small shop nearby that sells frozen dinners, which are made with local, healthy ingredients. Although the initial price gave us sticker shock, we later calculated it out and realized it was only marginally more expensive than a trip through a drive-thru would have been. As an added bonus, it actually tasted good — something I’d been a bit skeptical about.
I also made a trip to Chipotle with my kids. It’s not local, but it is a burrito joint known for its sustainable practices. My kids liked it and I didn’t have any of my normal fast-food pangs of guilt. Strictly speaking, it may not be the ultimate in healthy living, and I recognize that. But, I’m realistic enough to know that there are times when I’ll be in a time crunch and need to grab food on the go. Sometimes, it’s not a matter of making the best choice but simply making a better choice.
At the two-week mark, my family is having some mixed reactions to the experiment. My husband has given it two thumbs down, worrying that we’re spending, as he put it, a “crapload” of money on health food and are buying foods we don’t always end up liking. I’m a bit more hopeful. While we spent a fair amount the first week, the second week was much more budget-friendly. I’m optimistic that as time goes on and we get the hang of this, we’ll figure out a way to make this work for both our diets and our wallets.
Dana Macario is a Seattle-area writer who is terrified, yet determined to eat healthy and local for a full month.
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You may be making this more challenging on yourself than you need to. To make it a sustainable habit – and to get your family on board – you can’t go cold-turkey on the grocery store. The 30-day no grocery market challenge is a great marketing idea to raise awareness for localvore options, but it’s a terrible idea if the goal is to develop a sustained independence from the grocery store. There simply aren’t local alternatives for everything you get at the store, and it forces you to make bizarre compromises that will almost certainly disappoint.
I live in Portland which, like Seattle, has a strong farming economy. Even in the city, we’re flush with weekday and weekend markets. But there are some things that you just can’t easily find or access. We get ~60-70% of our food from local markets in the summer, and about 1/3 give or take in the winter. Vegetables and fruits are a no-brainer. Local meats – chicken, lamb and pork – are also easy to find. Local beef, a bit tougher. If your family is used to and likes beef, cutting it out of the menu because it’s not locally accessible just hurts the cause. Come up with more dishes that the family likes that use chicken, lamb and pork, and you’ll slowly migrate them towards a menu that can better leverage the local options.
Eating out can also be a localvore activity without having to rely on frozen dinners or Chipotle(which is not sourcing locally....). I’m sure that Seattle, like Portland, has many restaurants that rely heavily on local and seasonal ingredients. And there’s no compromise in variety or quality. Some of the best/most popular Portland restaurants are heavily invested in local sourcing with a menu that reflects what’s in season. Find bakeries that utilize local eggs and grains, coffee shops that serve locally roasted (even if not locally grown) beans, etc.
But when there’s something the family wants that isn’t locally available, go to the store. All things in moderation…
Hit Girl,
This might be the most sensible post I've ever read.
The best way to take advantage of great deals on fresh, local produce is to learn the art of canning or freezing. There is a bit of a learning curve to canning, but it's a worthwhile venture if you're trying to keep your budget in check. I also agree with the above poster who suggests moderating your shopping habits, rather than going for a cold-turkey switch. It's just like starting a new diet -- making small changes can be much more sustainable over the long run than adopting a whole new menu, which can make anyone feel irritable and like they're missing out on something.
If you continue to make the small changes from mass-market to local fare, you'll find which local-food choices work the best for your lifestyle and your budget without alienating your family.
Kelly, freezing and canning are good options,but, only if you have an affordable supply of produce such as a large garden or your own orchard.
I buy at my local farm. This is not a farmers market. It is a real farm. However, it is a luxury. The produce is not really cheap enough to make me want to can very much.
One thing that this farm does is that they sell seconds produce in about a half bushel box. Sometimes it is a good buy, some times not. I do buy and preserve tomatoes from the seconds boxes. But, to buy first run produce and preserve it would not be cost effective. Of course, I do put up some just because it is nice to have a taste of summer in January.
My mother used to keep a garden and she got such high yields from her garden. She had a room full of canned goods from her garden.
I agree that preserving is good, but it can be quite expensive if you are not growing your own produce.
In our town all the small independent businesses have been driven out and all that remains are the few chain stores. This did not occur because of competition but by collaboration by local and state officials. This situation has become universal.
It is going to be almost impossible to eat in the manner of which you are accustomed by buying only local food. What is available locally is going to be different everywhere.
Back inna' day when people did have to eat only what they could produce, they ate a very limited diet. They ate to survive. We do not eat only to survive. That would mean eating cabbages and other vegetables that have been stored in a cellar, not having eggs in the winter cold because the hens don't lay, having limited dairy products and having home canned beans and the such. Even the folks around you are not going to have food to sell to you because they are under the same regional, climate restrictions are you are.
Modern expectations are different.
Just what is the objective of trying to eat only local foods? Is it for environmental reasons, for health reasons, or for some other reason? If you want to make a smaller environmental footprint and eat more nutritious and affordable food, there are any number of changes that you can make in your concept of food that will serve both of those needs,as well as provide a more affordable source of nutrition. Just depending on local foods is going to leave you lacking.
Learning to enjoy and buy foods from the local co-op is a good start to supplement the local foods. Buying from the bulk bins of grains, dried beans, flours, seeds, molasses, honey and oil is a first step forward on these fronts. The second step is learning to incorporate these food into your diet and learning to cook and serve them and, to enjoy them. In my opinion, this is the second tier, after shopping for locally produced items. At least these products are an alternative to the over packaged, adulterated foods that many buy in the mega shopping market. And, some are a result of "fair trade".
A third tier of this would be to redefine how much food you really need to eat. Most of us eat way too much food. When you pay more for quality food, you do not want to load the dinner plate with more than you really need.
If you are buying locally produced and expensive butter, for instance, you are going to enjoy that butter in foods where you can really appreciate the butter. You are less likely to hack off a big chunk of it and throw it into a batch of cookies. So, you eliminate cookies from your diet.
If you are buying locally produced beef at a high cost, you are more likely to pay attention to the fact that you really need only a small piece of that meat for your dinner. No more one pound steaks on the dinner plate.
It is not possible to eat in the manner that you are used to by only buying locally produced items. You will need to learn to view your meals in a different manner and you will need to alter and train your palette to a new normal. You will also have to go to the second tier of eating local foods by supplementing with some other sustainable food products.
Not all places in America have such options. There are many places where the only thing available is overly packaged, expensive, non sustainable, environmentally destructive, and nutritionally damaging products from the likes of Archer MIdland and Perdue.
These changes in habit and expectations and eating pleasure will not come in a short time. You will not form this habit within the time of a month. It also requires a willingness from the family that you are feeding, and learning new ways to compose and prepare a meal. It is, without a doubt, a learning curve.
Dana, your children will be better served by feeding them a peanut butter sandwich rather than resorting to something like Chipoltes. This is one of the challenges in learning new expectations about food. Whole grain bread and natural peanut butter is great nutrition. It is affordable and very portable.
Eating anything out is going to be compromise. We are off to travel for next week and I don't look forward to having to get meals out. It is one thing if it is just the two of us. But, when you are with others, you have to make exceptions. We, generally, will find some yogurt or something for breakfast, maybe make a picnic for lunch or have just something really light, then to out for dinner as something to do in the evening. Always it is too much salt and too much fat! After a few days, I begin to feel bloated and weighted down.
Last weekend, I sat outside a Chipoltes while my MIL and husband's family (not me) chowed down on ice cream from the ice cream place around the corner. There was a line in the store that went all the way around the store. Most were getting take out food. Most were very young. There was very little dining going on. It was mostly grab and eat. I don't understand how they can possibly be viewed as having an environmental awareness when all of those people are walking out with throw away dinner service and loads of junky, cheesy mess.
And, then Americans complain about how much they spend on food!
Part of the problem with "shopping local", is that a lot of the products in the roadside stands and organized street markets is NOT local. One example in my area is that people flock to Annapolis for the Thurs-Sat Amish Market, with all their organic grown food brought down from Pennsylvania, including: "Pennsylvania" pineapples, coconuts, coffee, spices, etc! And they sell such nice cherries in the Winter! When the salmonella problem arose when Bush II was in office and they first thought it might be from Mexican tomatoes, my favorite local stand in suburban Baltimore had a sign up, proudly saying their tomatoes were from Georgia.
the mick,
I live in Maryland, also. We have wonderful farms that do grow their own produce. At the first of the year, before the tomatoes and corn are ready here, they do get it from the Carolinas and further south. But, they always make that known.
We also have an Amish market here. They do sell local produce, but they do sell the other things that you mentioned as well. The market near me does not advertise their produce as being organic. The do, however, sell vegetarian chickens. I have not figured that one out!
I don't go to the farmers markets, though. I go to the farm. I am lucky to have it close. This is not true for a lot of people.
I'm sure there is a CSA in Seattle that would let your family sign up for a month to try it out....
The first post on here hit the nail on the head. It's about moderation. Too often (especially in today's guilt-trip society) we try to make every "issue" an all or nothing proposition. That's just dumb. Buying local is a great idea but if you are driving 50 miles out of the way to buy local stuff, is it really a good value for you? Probably not. Plus, contrary to what people say, buying local or organic can be expensive............ a lot more expensive. I love the taste of organic milk. It also lasts a lot longer than commercial milk. It's double the price but worth it to me. Not so much with other organic products. You have to pick your battles and don't give into the guilt trip people want to lay on you.
It's like recycling. I recycle but now I have people telling me I shouldn't even buy a bottle of water. Really? When I travel or go to a party, bottles of water, soda, gatorade, etc. are handy to have so you'll just have to get over it. Use some common sense and you can make it work.