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Food. Food is a big one. We all need it, we all eat it, and we all have our opinions about it. I love talking about food. Here’s some information about how you can begin eat locally and support your health and your community.

Food and diet is a big topic in naturopathic and Chinese medicine. That old phrase ‘we are what we eat’ is the truth. My family has always been committed to eating organic food as much as possible. To me, organic food is a no-brainer. I simply do not want to ingest chemicals in any way, if I can help it. Now, I am not perfect. I love a box of Red Vines at the movies, and there are plenty of ways to eat sugar and still eat organic. Until recently, however, I have not always been really aware of eating locally. I always just thought that if it was organic, then it must be good.

There is another layer to this discussion, and that is the idea of eating locally. This means to eat food that is grown organically by local farms; starting with food that is grown in the same country, better yet, the same state, or food that has been grown and raised in your own garden. One of the reasons for this is to take into account how far and how much gas it took to get that food to your kitchen table. The fuel costs to drive food everywhere is astronomical. If that banana (which I really like to have in my smoothies in the morning) comes from somewhere tropical, then it had to be driven to me from somewhere far away from Portland. From somewhere I would love to be as we enter into February in the Pacific Northwest. Avocados are a big one as well. Those do not grow here in Portland in February either.

I was really excited to read Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle about how her family took on a food challenge: to live a year in which they vowed to only consume food raised in their own neighborhood, grown by themselves, or otherwise learned to live without it. All along the way, their 19 year-old daughter gives little vignettes with food planning menus and recipes, while also talking about her experience with the project. As the book cover says:

“Their good humored search yields surprising discoveries about turkey sex-life and overly zealous zucchini plants, en route to a food culture that’s better for the neighborhood and also better for the table”.

This book made me further examine my own relationship with food, in an amazingly simple way. What types of food are growing right now that I can eat? Growing my own food gives me so much pleasure. It also makes me more in touch with the seasons. I am aware of the seasons in the way the flowers and trees change. However, being able to buy anything at any time of year, despite growing my own food garden, I was still quite ignorant to the food growing seasons. Bananas in winter? No problem.

Now, back to those avocados: do I really need to eat them in the winter? They have definitely had to travel a long way to get to Portland, Oregon in the winter. Even though they are organic, they have still costs a lot of money to ship them up here. Can I get my monounsaturated fats and B-vitamins elsewhere? I know that those blueberries are not growing in my backyard so where did they come from? Is there a company making flour closer to me then where this one comes from?

Now I ask myself: “how far did this have to come to get to my table?” The goal is: the closer it came from, the better.

Farmer’s market’s are popping up all over this country, so there is no excuse for people not to get in their cars, or better yet, get on their bike, or ride the bus and go to one (click here to learn more about farmer’s markets in your neck of the woods). The food is local, the people are growing it, so the money is going right back into the pockets of the people who grew it. Eating locally is cheaper as well. The cost of transportation is huge, and only getting bigger with increase gas prices. Thus, things can cost less if they are less expensive to get to your table.

Winter is hard for food choices; there is not as much variety. As I mention before, I am not perfect. I still buy bananas for my smoothies. I try to buy them a lot less, and also be grateful and aware that they have come so far for me to enjoy them. I also try to keep my out of season foods intake to a minimum and keep in balance with eating foods that are readily available this time of year. In other words, I eating all the root veggies and collard greens, I can get my hands on.

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To learn some more about local farmers and co-ops, take a look at these successful organizations and checkout how they have interlaced themselves into the community. If you’re into vegetable gardening, perhaps with the help of others, your fruit stand could feed others! Organize and revolutionize the way we work with food!

The Genesee Valley Organic Community Supported Agriculture

New Seasons Market

People’s Co-Op