Viva La Local

Local food is the hot topic these days, but hopefully not a quick trend that comes and goes. As shareholders of Angelic Organics, we automatically cook with local vegetables – at least for half the year. But trying to cook with all local ingredients is a challenge – fruit, cheese, meat, grains... One blogger took on this challenge and convinced over 100 other bloggers to join in.

Liz from Pocket Farm recently kicked off the second year of One Local Summer – a project where you are challenged to prepare one entirely local meal each week of the summer. The response was overwhelming this year; 110 people signed up and each week they submit their meal details. If you’re interested in following the project, visit onelocalsummer.blogspot.com.

But what’s the big deal about eating local anyway, you might ask. Lucky us, a fellow blogger at Eat Local Challenge has answered that question in her post “10 Reasons to Eat Local Food”. Here’s a quick cheat sheet:

• Eating local means more for the local economy
• Locally grown produce is fresher
• Local food just plain tastes better
• Locally grown fruits and vegetables have longer to ripen
• Eating local is better for air quality and pollution than eating organic
• Buying local food keeps us in touch with the seasons
• Buying locally grown food is fodder for a wonderful story
• Eating local protects us from bio-terrorism
• Local food translates to more variety
• Supporting local providers supports responsible land development