Eat Local Challenge 2009

For the second time I’m participating in the Eat Local Challenge.

The traditional Eat Local Challenge is a basic concept: commit to eating only locally grown foods for a period of thirty days. Declare “exceptions” that you will not be eating locally, and try as hard as you can to have everything else come from your local foodshed. “Local” is traditionally a 150-mile distance from your home, but can really be defined as any area near you. Some locavores choose their county, state, or region.

You can read about my efforts last year, including my exceptions and lessons learned.

Accordingly, I’m modifying my guidelines this year.

CRITERIA

I’m expanding my local area to a 200-mile radius around Mobile, AL. By doing this I’m hoping to get some regionally-grown grains, such as flour and rice, and possibly some additional produce options.

EXCEPTIONS

• cooking oils (primarily olive oil, then canola, and a small amount of sesame)
• spices, including salt
• leavening, including yeast, baking powder, and baking soda
• tea
• butter (I will try to use no more than 1lb of organic butter for the month)
• onions (in a pinch, though I will try to stick to the 3 gift onions I have)
• gifts
• dried beans*
• perishable items already on hand – we have some carrots, cauliflower, garlic, and eggs that need to be eaten
• ingredients we plan to buy locally but don’t yet have on hand – in particular wheat flour and rice

* A note on the dried beans. This is a nod to economy, as one of the big changes in our diet in the last year has been the addition of more dried beans, which we now cook and use on a regular basis; I eat them for lunch several times a week. As documented by the folks at Eating Alabama, dried beans are not produced in Alabama.

Gifts we already have on hand include some Indiana-grown produce bought by my mother, and then brought down on a recent trip to visit us (so it was actually local to her when she bought it). There are the aforementioned three precious onions, a variety of apples, corn, tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, and some handmade egg noodles.

I have put by a few things that will help us out: peaches, blueberries, garlic, and lime juice.

In the garden, the pole beans have started producing and there’s a little arugula to harvest. Jalapenos are still producing from the summer. My sunflowers were stunted and attacked by borers, but I still hope to get a couple of small heads of seeds. I have a tomatillo that’s blooming so I hope to see some fruit from that, though I don’t know how it will react to the recent spate of cool nights.