Eating CloseTo Home Takes A Lot Of Effort

There are dozens of reasons to eat as close as possible to where you live.The 100 Mile Diet website lists about 11 of them.
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Personaly, I would say that the most important reasons to eat locally are:

1. Give back to the local economy
2. Support small farms
3. Taste the difference
4. Reduce air pollution

Here is an excellent ARTICLE about why it is good to eat close to home.

Very encouraging to see more farmers involved in school programs.

Dover-Eyota Schools celebrated Farm to School Week by inviting their farmers to school.

Jerry Kathan of Kathan's Ridgeview Orchards in LaCrescent is one of two farmers who accepted the invitation.

Kathan began selling apples to Dover-Eyota Schools in 2009 after meeting food and nutrition director Carrie Frank at his apple stand on the corner of 16th and Broadway in Rochester.

The school market gave him the opportunity to market older varieties and smaller apples, Kathan said. Consumers now want the new varieties, favoring a Zestar! over a State Fair, but the school market gives Kathan the opportunity to have more varieties in his orchard. He has 31 varieties on 20 acres at his family's century-old farm.

Locally Grown Food

t's not your ordinary summer road trip. 13 young leaders. 8 states. 2000 miles. A journey to expose the injustices in the food system "from the 'hood to the heartland".
Read More Of Food, Freedom Rides Rally

3 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for grates
3 medium zucchini (1 1/2 pounds total), cut into 1/2-inch-wide slices on the diagonal
4 Portobello mushrooms (1 pound total), stemmed
1 1/2 bunches scallions, root ends trimmed
Coarse salt and ground pepper
4 flour tortillas (10-inch or burrito-size)
3 cups store-bought fresh salsa, or Fresh Tomato Salsa
4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled (1 cup)
1 lime, cut lengthwise into 4 wedges (optional), for serving

Heat grill to high; lightly oil grates. In separate piles, arrange zucchini, mushrooms, and scallions on a baking sheet. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons oil; season with salt and pepper. Working in batches if necessary, remove each pile of vegetables from baking sheet. Grill, turning once, until lightly browned and tender, 2 minutes for scallions, 6 minutes for mushrooms, and 8 minutes for zucchini.
Return all vegetables to baking sheet. Slice mushrooms into 1/2-inch-wide strips. Set aside.
Brush tortillas with remaining tablespoon oil; grill, turning frequently, until browned and very crispy, about 2 minutes. Place 1 tortilla on each serving plate; cover evenly with mushrooms and zucchini. Using kitchen shears, snip scallions over vegetables. Top with salsa, and sprinkle with feta; serve with lime wedges, if desired.

Grilled Vegetable Tostadas

An excellent article from UC Observer.org, written by Chantal Braganza

You knew it would be difficult, but you made the commitment. You told yourself it would be better for the environment, your health and the local economy. And so when spring melted the snow, you bought provincially grown asparagus and maybe tried baking a rhubarb pie.

Then summer arrived and all the benefits of your new diet were on display at your farmers market. Buckets of strawberries, sweet summer peas. Peaches and pears that yielded juicily against your tongue when you bit into them.

"Eating local never tasted so good," you thought to yourself as you polished off the last of late fall's apple harvest

CONTINUE READING HERE

Four Season Farm
Slow Food Foundation
Slow Food U.S.A.
100 mile diet
Eat Local Challenge
Nutrition Nibbles
Cooking Up A Story

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"The kind of food that we put into our body gives us the energy to get through the day," she said.

Mrs. Obama praised farmers markets as places where Americans can learn more about how their food is produced.

"You get to know the people who grow your food, how they do it, you know, who they are as people," she said.

These markets play an especially important in neighborhoods where access to healthy options are limited, she added.

The first lady has been promoting locally grown food and healthy eating with a popular vegetable garden at the White House.

Read more ...

Eliot Coleman from the Four Season Farm in Harborside , Maine has made this very practical "veggies wagon" to sell fruits and vegetables at Farmers Market.
What a cool way to bring locally grown produce to people in town.

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