Part of the appeal of a farmers market – besides the fresh and tasty food – is that eating locally is considered a great way to support local economies while decreasing food’s carbon footprint. Since the average food item travels upwards of 1500 miles to reach its eventual eater(http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubs/staff/ppp/food_mil.pdf) and that eats up a lot of petroleum and releases a great deal of carbon into the environment, anything we can do to decrease food miles is seen to help the overall environment. And did I mention that the food is fresher and tastes better?
Recently a number of books have been published that tout the glories of eating local food, and several organizations have been actively supporting a local-food diet, often called a ‘100-mile diet’ (http://100milediet.org/). Real interest in this phenomenon started in 2002 with the publication of Gary Nabhan’s Coming Home to Eat, in which he described his year of eating local; everything he ate for that year came from within 200 miles of his home – no mean feat in the Southwest! And then, in 2006, Michael Pollan’s blockbuster The Omnivore’s Dilemma took the country by storm and provided even more reasons for switching to local, and locally known, sources of sustenance. Just this year has seen the publication of two excellent books (and probably even more) about eating locally, and each has received a great deal of attention and generated many sales. Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon and the much-lauded (and deservedly so) Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver have brought this concept to the attention of the average American eater. Kingsolver was even kind enough to mention our very own Oakmont Farmers Market when she gave a talk at the Philadelphia Library in May; she announced the market as the newest producer-only, strictly 100-mile local food farmers market in the Philadelphia area – a notice that brought a number of people to the market. And more and more restaurants are going local – stop by the manager tent to pick up the 2007/2008 Fair Food Local Food guide if you’d like a list of markets and restaurant in the greater metropolitan area that use local foods preferentially. Local food is hot hot hot!
But is it easy to adopt a strict 100-mile diet, and should you do so? Obviously, that is up to you. I know that I buy almost all of our food locally when I can, although I am not a purist. We are so lucky to live in Pennsylvania, where so many foods are grown, and
where adopting a 100-mile diet can be done and pretty easily. I read Kingsolver’s book with the same sense of dread that Martha Stewart evokes; a sense of: ‘OH, NO! Another thing I OUGHT to be doing!” And of course, just as I can’t make attractive picture frames out of used and gilded dryer lint, I can’t contemplate giving up French, Italian, and Californian wine, olive oil, pineapples, or Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. So I don’t. As I said, I’m not a purist.
So how do we support local food? First, by not being ideological, and by avoiding the phrases ‘should’ and ‘ought to’. Second, by buying locally what we can and when we can. That’s easy here in Pennsylvania during the summer, since we are still a primarily agricultural state. This option was laid out beautifully and logically last week in an Op-Ed piece by Marlene Parrish in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07214/806141-34.stm) in which she suggested trying for 80% local. Do a triage – pick what you love and can’t live without from further away, give up what you can live without, and buy everything else locally. Each person will have a different list of ‘must-haves’ and so each person’s 80% diet will look different, and each will work for them according to their needs and desires. She ends her essay with the following advice for enjoying and extending the season, which I find perfect for our corner of Pennsylvania as well:
“August is an ideal time to eat local. We are in high season for local produce. Farmers’ markets are bursting with fruits and vegetables, and there’s a ton of home-canned pickles, relishes, preserves and jams on the tables.”
So it’s time to stock up and enjoy!
Janet Chrzan
Oakmont Farmers Market Co-manager