Eat Local Challenge Week

Eating locally produced foods became green trend now.  My wife is excited to cook and eat local foods for 1 week that involves me and my son and her mother too.  Personally, I don't mind eating 100% locally as long as food is good.



so why should we eat locally produced foods anyway? beside to avoid cooporate industrial food culture, large scale chemical farming and global distribution and long distance trucking being great concern to us.

  1. fresh and has better nutrients because the harvest is at the optimal stage.
  2. less transportation, less fuel used
  3. farmer's market and food stand require less packaging.
  4. require less or no chemicals (fungicide etc) and irradiation to preserve for long distance shipping and even required by law sometimes.
  5. garden can store food in the landscape.  fresh herbs, perennial vegetables.
  6. wild harvest (fish, mountain vegetables, game animals) are typically not available at stores
  7. locally produced foods are better adapted for our food culture and environment we live in.
  8. taste better
  9. we know where the foods come from or at least easier to find the producer


My biggest problem is eating rice.  Since I grew up in Japan and eating rice has been a big part of my food culture so I don't know how long I can last without obsessive craving.

I grew mochi rice last year, but seasonality is not distinct to produce full yield.  If I only want to get rice as a  backup option, this will suffice, but it doesn't change the core problem of why we should be eating local food.  We have lots of taro to eat from our garden.  perhaps 100lb still stored in the ground.

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