Passionate Homemaking

How spoiled we are when we truly look at the abun­dance God has pro­vided us within our own com­mu­ni­ties! Why should I buy food that has trav­eled thou­sands of miles at times, when an abun­dance is avail­able in my own vicin­ity simply through doing a little research. The more I reflect on enjoy­ing and sup­port­ing local agri­cul­ture the more I real­ize that eating locally is the way to go!

Benefits:

1. Buying locally provides you with the freshest food and ingredients

Local food is fresher and tastes better than food shipped long dis­tances from other states or coun­tries. Local farm­ers can offer pro­duce vari­eties bred for taste and fresh­ness rather than for ship­ping and long shelf life. The aver­age food trav­els 1,300 miles from farm to table! That means it needs a lot of preser­v­a­tives and added chem­i­cals to make it last! Super­mar­ket food often trav­els seven to four­teen days before arriv­ing in your local super­mar­ket.

2. Buying locally is beneficial for the environment

Local food doesn’t have to travel far. This reduces carbon diox­ide emis­sions and pack­ing mate­ri­als. When you buy local food, you vote with your food dollar. This ensures that family farms in your com­mu­nity will con­tinue to thrive and that healthy, fla­vor­ful, plen­ti­ful food will be avail­able for future gen­er­a­tions. This is another small way we can be good stew­ards of the world around us!

3. Buying locally is often cheaper

Buying accord­ing to the what is in season is def­i­nitely cheaper! It doesn’t have to travel very far to your table and thus doesn’t have all those addi­tional costs for trans­porta­tion and perservation.

4. Buying locally is so much fun!

Get­ting to know farm­ers in the area is quite enjoy­able! It is refresh­ing to know where your food is coming from, know­ing how farm­ers go about pro­duc­ing their goods, and to get to knows them in the process is a great joy.

Sources:

Now is the season for summer abundance!

Farmer’s Market

There are over 3,100 farmer’s mar­kets through­out the US - one is prob­a­bly near you! Visit Local Har­vest for an extended search engine of farmer’s mar­kets around the country.

A fun family past time as of late for our family is to visit our local farmer’s market in Van­cou­ver, WA on Sat­ur­day morn­ings. It is small and not too crowded, the booths and people are so pleas­ant and fun, espe­cially when you top it all off with some freshly made donuts from one of the stands (opps…you didn’t hear that!)

I just love walk­ing around and enjoy­ing our local com­mu­nity, sup­port­ing local agri­cul­ture and the abun­dance that the Lord has blessed us with right here in our city! It is just a small reminder that it doesn’t have to cost much, nor does it have to be extrav­a­gant to have a fun outing as a family.

Check out your local farmer’s market! Make sure to ask if they use sprays or pes­ti­cides, because just because they are at the farmer’s market, doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily mean it is free from these added chem­i­cals. It doesn’t have to be organic to be good for you, I just rec­om­mend trying to avoid the sprays!

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

I am absolutely loving my CSA! Since start­ing this year it has been an adven­ture! Not only am I learn­ing how to be cre­ative and cook with dif­fer­ent veg­eta­bles that I have never used before (bok choy, mus­tard greens, etc), because they are not sold in a stan­dard super­mar­ket, I am enjoy­ing a fresh vari­ety of won­der­ful food! It def­i­nitely has its chal­lenges at times, and can be stretch­ing, but it is good!

Find out more about CSA’s here. You can also search the Local Har­vest search engine for CSA list­ings in your area. I have been using Hidden Oasis farm in my area and they actu­ally deliver to my door! That is a huge bless­ing! My farmer isn’t cer­ti­fied organic, but he doesn’t use any sprays and I know from our con­ver­sa­tions that he is doing it right! Organic isn’t nec­es­sary as long as you know the way they do it!

Local Restaurants

Sur­pris­ingly enough you can sup­port local agri­cul­ture by choos­ing restau­rants for family out­ings or date nights at restau­rants who use locally grown ingre­di­ents. It’s won­der­ful! Here’s a list for those who live in the Port­land metro area of Oregon.

Fast Food - Burg­erville - it may be a little more expen­sive but it is all local and tastes better than any other fast food! Worth the little invest­ment for better quality.

Dining in Port­land, OR

• Three Square Grill
• Nos­trana
• Hot Lips Pizza
• Cafe Bijou, 132 SW Third Ave, Port­land (503) 222-3187, open break­fast and lunch only
• Biwa
• Park Kitchen
• Higgin’s Restau­rant & Bar
• Ver­i­ta­ble Quandary
• Dundee Bistro
• Paley’s Place Bistro & Bar
• Nick’s Ital­ian Cafe (McMinnville)
• Cana’s Feast Winery (Carl­ton)

Check out restau­rants in your area through Eat Wild (select your state, and then click on the right side bar “Beyond the Farm” for a full list­ing of restau­rants) & Chef’s Collaborative.

Grow Your Own

We bought some lovely tomato plant starts from a local farmer who knows it all! I have been inspired to plant some this year and begin explor­ing the world of gar­den­ing in con­tain­ers! Since I have no yard, this is my only option, but boy are there many things that grow well in this envi­ron­ment. I received an abun­dance of tips and am excited to put them into prac­tice as I plant them this week. How fun! I am start­ing small, with four tomato plants…but the farmer assured me this would pro­vide an abun­dance of toma­toes and supply my needs for can­ning this summer. I am excited! Next year I may get a little more guts to plant some other items. Baby steps!

No matter the limit of your space…consider grow­ing some of your own food this year!

Here’s an inspir­ing video on the home­grown rev­o­lu­tion (thanks to B.D. Buie for pass­ing it on!). It’s chal­leng­ing to see others using their lim­ited space even in a city to grow their own food! You don’t need to live out in the coun­try or have an abun­dance of land! You can make it work wher­ever you are!

Further Resources

For more infor­ma­tion on buying locally visit FoodRoutes.org.
Animal, Veg­etable, Mir­a­cle by Bar­bara King­solver - the story of one fam­i­lies jour­ney to eat locally!
Local berry farms: Pick Your Own (ask about sprays!), Local Har­vest
Local meat, dairy: Eat Wild

Check out your pack­ag­ing! Where are these items coming from?

Have fun explor­ing the bounty that sur­rounds you! Every little step is making progress! We started with CSA, then we began vis­it­ing our local farmer’s market, and now I am start­ing to check out my labels for other items! You would be sur­prised how far things can travel before get­ting to your table! While shop­ping at Costco, I found organic salsa pro­duced in Eugene, OR which is just two hours south of us. I also found raisins grown and pro­duced in Oregon as well. It’s sur­pris­ing what you can find when you look a little closer!

Works for me!