What the heck is a locavore, anyway?
In 2005 four women in San Francisco challenged friends, family and neighbors to eat food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius of their city. Since then other local food movements have cropped up (excuse the pun) all over the country. In the process of changing the way we eat, those women gave us a new word: locavore.
Also known as localvores, the label defines people who eat most of their food from farmer’s markets, local producers, or their own backyards. In 2007 The New Oxford American Dictionary chose locavore as its word of the year. And Mac recently launched a Locavore iPhone application; the feature will tell you what’s in season in your state and help you find nearby farmer’s markets.
All these signs point to a growing awareness that what we do–or don’t do–every night around the dinner table means more than simply fueling up for another day. People are marrying their love of food with the knowledge of how their eating habits impact the earth, their communities, and their bodies.
So with the rise of locavores comes a whole new vocabulary: CSA, RSA, ecopreneur, agro-tourism, etc. For definitions and more information on eating locally, check out these resources:
- Locallectual (an evolving glossary of locavore words and phrases)
- The Natural Resources Defense Council’s Eat Local page (find out what’s in season near you, how to cook it, and how far your food travels before landing on grocery store shelves)
- Local Harvest (find farmer’s markets, family farms, grass-fed meat providers and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area).
For me, eating locally started as an experiment and has become a way of life, deepened by my Happy Valley experience and sense of community. I’m challenging myself to eat more locally produced food every day. Right now that means asparagus casserole, roasted local chicken, and a hunt for locally produced fruit snacks for my daughter.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 10:23 pm and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 29th, 2009 at 12:34 am
This is one of my favorite times of year for eating locally! And the opening of the State College Downtown Farmer’s Market provides us with another chance to buy locally grown food.
In addition to the health benefits, and feeling good about buying food with a smaller carbon footprint, I really love the “social” aspect of buying locally. I meet up with friends at the local markets, chat with the vendors, and make an afternoon outing of it. What would have been a chore at the supermarket with 2 small children is a pleasure at the outdoor markets!
I am interested in hearing about the locally produced fruit snacks you are hunting for!
May 29th, 2009 at 6:08 am
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