Wednesday, June 24, 2009

An Eat Local Challenge

For anyone who browses my "favorite blogs" list on the right side bar, you may have stumbled upon the Reduce Footprints blog. I love this blog...I get lots of good ideas and learn new things all the time.

Every Wednesday, Small Footprints has a new weekly challenge. I missed the first two, and boy, I'm glad I didn't miss this one! Check out this week's challenge:

For one full day this week, eat only local foods. No tropical fruits from across the world ... no veggies that traveled hundreds of miles to get to your table ... only locally grown foods (this includes meats, dairy products, etc., if you eat them).

Cool, huh? Right up my alley! I wonder, though, how much fudging is fair for the boys. I don't think their morning Cheerios are local. I also haven't found good local sources of cooking oil (though I could just plan to use local bacon on my 100% local day and cook in the grease, or use butter, or, gasp, plan meals that don't need any sauteing), salt, or grains. I can probably do without those for a day, though it's the staples like these that keep me from ever attempting a more extensive local food challenge.

Anyone else want to play along? Head over to Reduce Footprints!

I'm going to cross post this on the How Does Your Garden Grow blog as well, I think, and see if I can get others to join in!

8 comments:

Unknown said...

If nothing else, this challenge is really making us pay attention to where our food comes from. I'm vegan so ... can't use local butter or bacon fat to cook in. :) So ... I'm going to get creative ... not sure how that will play out but ... stay tuned.

Thanks for posting about this on both of your sites! And be sure to update us on how it goes for you!

Small Footprints

LauraC said...

I just added that site to my reader, love it. My tough one would be coffee. Definitely no coffee in NC.

But our CSA delivery was crazy this week. We will eat for days from this. Potatoes, two kinds of squash, two kinds of green beans, peaches, tomatoes, even local hot sauce.

Everyday Goddess said...

When I saw your title I thought you meant eat at local restaurants. Isn't that lame of me?

Kyle said...

If you have a local dairy get heavy cream and make the butter like you showed us how to do at Christmas.

Anonymous said...

Okay, this is one challenge I can rock big time. A big perk to living on a tropical island- all the fruit and yummy fish you can eat. And the #1 food exported from my island? Coffee. It's too dang easy. Don't hate me cuz I'm tropical ;)

Heather said...

we talked about doing this recently with some of our friends, and it seems some of the hardest things to find local are sugar and flour...not sure we would make it without those things around here.

Ronnica said...

I don't have a clue what I'd eat if I attempted it. Convenience foods don't tend to be local...

Jeanne Estridge said...

As the summer goes on, this will get easier -- the farmers' markets are just starting to open here.