With all the new buzzwords, it can be hard to keep up. Locavore, ustainable, eco-friendly, WAPF, traditional foods, lacto-fermented, and slow food are some of the terms that are becoming important to people tired of the mass-produced everything in our lives.
What is a locavore?
Taking things one step further, a locavore is someone who strives to consume foods that are produced close to home, within a 100 mile radius for our purposes (150 officially for the Dark Days Challenge, outlined below). Click on this link for a great article on where and how to begin eating locally.
Being a locavore allows me to support my local Michigan economy, direct my money toward small farms where families work hard – very hard – to provide local families with life-sustaining food out of the goodness of their hearts, and it maximizes the nutrient content of my family’s food.
With all of the health scares that come out almost daily now, I don’t have to worry that my lettuce may have come from a contaminated factory farm, my meat could contain salmonella from dirty animals or a dirty processing plant, or my honey is illegally sourced from China.
My lettuce comes from farmer Neil and his wife Martha, and the cow in my freezer, raw unfiltered honey, and raw milk come from Kevin and Jenny who run Hicks Dairy Farm. It is a satisfaction that I can’t put into words. We do still buy some of our food from Whole Foods Market but are well on our way to becoming partially self-sustaining locavores. My goal is to be at least 85% locavore by the end of 2012 and to have a successful mini-suburbanite homestead that provides vegetables, plants for medicine, and berries. I can’t wait!
Dark Days Challenge
I have teamed up with a sizable group of like-minded adventurists in The Dark Days Challenge. We will each attempt to create at least once meal per week as locally-sourced as possible and blog about it.
The rules are here, put up by the (no so) urban Hennery, and the Sunday bi-weekly recaps will be here at Not Dabbling In Normally. I have to admit that this is definitely going to be a challenge for me. With my daughter’s many food allergies, our healing diet (GAPS), and having no preserved local produce on hand, we are limited with our food choices.
With those extra hurdles in mind, I’m still very excited and hope you will join me on my journey. 🙂
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