Give me spots on my apples, leave me the birds and the bees
Coincidentally, last night was the much anticipated "Eating Local" class that I signed up for through the University of Utah's Lifelong Learning Program. So even though I just blogged about growing my own food, I'm going to potentially bore you with a similar post about my efforts to buy local food.
The whole process of buying locally is completely new to me. I've been thinking more and more about this whole idea as I've been developing my culinary skills and have realized that produce at the grocery store totally sucks. Sometimes it's even downright inedible. I hate Walmart and I don't like the thought of my food traveling thousands of miles, using gallons of fuel, to reach my kitchen table when someone's growing it just down the road. So supporting local agriculture seems like the right choice for me and this two-hour class was supposed to tell me how to do it.
I've been looking forward to the local farmer's market starting this month where I can get some quality produce, but I also wanted to know about other resources available to me in the Salt Lake City area. Not only did the class provide me with that information, but it also inspired me to try local flour, cheeses, and milk. I won't be able to make the switch all at once, but I'm going to work at it. Like the instructor said, I'm going to do at least one thing this week to support the local communities and to eat local. It'll be a good start.
I thought that there may be a few of you out there who are interested in this topic, who want to keep your dollars in your community and who care about where your food comes from, and so I'm including a list of links I was given last night. Unfortunately, many of the websites are for the state of Utah so if you live elsewhere, you'll have to do a little research on your own.
Slow Food Utah
Slow Food USA
Buy Local First Utah
Local Harvest
Post Carbon Salt Lake
100-Mile Diet
Wasatch Community Gardens
Utah's Own
Food Politics
Food Routes
Deconstructing Dinner
Sustainable Table
Sustain USA/Family Farmed
Farm & Food Policy Project
3 comments:
Interesting! We'd love to find some good local resources here in Mtn. Home. I'm sure there are some but I doubt we could find them through the internet.
They're really into eating local food here and are always mentioning carbon footprints. I have to say I've learned a lot about that recently in the Eco edition of Marie Clare I recently purchased....I know i'm lame.
That is something I love about Puyallup. We have a local farmer's market that starts in April and runs through September. We go every week and stock up on all the baked breads and organic produce. I love going!
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