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Locavore -- or Has Local Gone Too Far?


zoramargolis

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We tasted peaches from two different vendors, side by side the other day. The difference in flavor intensity was striking. Different varieties. Toigo's peaches had many times more flavor than Twin Springs'. Maybe insist on tasting before you buy next time?

I always taste before I buy. And the peaches were from Toigo. I already don't buy peaches from the grocery store, so it's disappointing to pay the local premium for something that isn't great.

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And I would say that the industrial organic agriculture empire built is on net harmful to the envoironment on average. But it sure allows folk to feel good on those meatless mondays as they eat incredibly processed "natural foods".

Then there is the school cafeteria "real food" movement, and the home gardening movement, and the bring fresh produce to inner cities movement... Changes to large-scale problems take time. It's a start, and it's all progress in the right direction. You can curse the darkness, or you can light a candle. These people are trying, and I applaud them.

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Then there is the school cafeteria "real food" movement, and the home gardening movement, and the bring fresh produce to inner cities movement... Changes to large-scale problems take time. It's a start, and it's all progress in the right direction. You can curse the darkness, or you can light a candle. These people are trying, and I applaud them.

I agree completely with bringing real food to cafeterias. Its just the food needs to be really real. If we bring in industrialized foods that are just slightly more real than the industrially conventional stuff, then little is accomplished.

I recently took a group of kids to the Penn Quarter farmer's market. We gave then a box of sun gold tomatoes to try. Almost 3/4 of the group had never had a fresh tomato before! About 1/3 of the group had only the experience of holding one, refusing to eat anything so strange. Another 1/3 gobbled up every last tomato. Then I showed then green onions and regular onions and showed them how one grew from the other. Amazement crept over their faces when they discovered that. Of course the best part was the reaction to the mushroom guy telling them mushrooms grow in "cow poop". But sadly, this group of kids is typical... they have no idea of what food really is and what goes into producing the foods they should be eating and not the processed foods that dominate their food ghettos.

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... But sadly, this group of kids is typical... they have no idea of what food really is and what goes into producing the foods they should be eating and not the processed foods that dominate their food ghettos.

And you are teaching them. :( Every step helps.

Edited to say - I think that so many people are overwhelmed by the enormousness of the problem that they are discouraged from doing anything at all. If everyone did just one small thing, it would make such a difference!

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johnb, do you have a link handy to the New Zealand lamb bit?

It has been cited in many places. If you go to the Wikipedia article on "Food Miles," it is given as the 13th item in the reference list at the end. Click on the little icon and you can download the pdf---110 pages.

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It has been cited in many places. If you go to the Wikipedia article on "Food Miles," it is given as the 13th item in the reference list at the end. Click on the little icon and you can download the pdf---110 pages.

Aussie and NZ lamb has a lower carbon footpring when in sold in England compared against locally grown lamb from {and I forget here} Scottland or England. Study was comissioned by Tesco.

Of course, carbon footprint s but one issue. How are the lamb treated when raised? What chemicals are used? What is the erosion/water results from the various lamb farms. What is the effect on the local economies when folk by NZ lamb vs Brit {ie British lamb is butchered {prolly the most expensive part of the proces is hte final prep and retailing locally, NZ and Aussie comes packaged}? Which tastes better? etc etc etc.

With all due respect to some very lovely people of great fame who raise very expensive local meats, the local meat model is great for the farmer, great for those well off enough to be able to buy it and a drop in the bucket to the issue of eating well in America. It is not a blueprint for solving our food crisis. Having large scale producers like Harris Ranch switch to low impact farming, taking cows off e coli producing corn regimens, using more humane meat processing and cleaner facilities would do so. But then no more $.99 value menu burgers full of "mechanically and/or steam removed fat stuff" filled burgers either!

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Aussie and NZ lamb has a lower carbon footpring when in sold in England compared against locally grown lamb from {and I forget here} Scottland or England. Study was comissioned by Tesco.

Of course, carbon footprint s but one issue. How are the lamb treated when raised? What chemicals are used? What is the erosion/water results from the various lamb farms. What is the effect on the local economies when folk by NZ lamb vs Brit {ie British lamb is butchered {prolly the most expensive part of the proces is hte final prep and retailing locally, NZ and Aussie comes packaged}? Which tastes better? etc etc etc.

With all due respect to some very lovely people of great fame who raise very expensive local meats, the local meat model is great for the farmer, great for those well off enough to be able to buy it and a drop in the bucket to the issue of eating well in America. It is not a blueprint for solving our food crisis. Having large scale producers like Harris Ranch switch to low impact farming, taking cows off e coli producing corn regimens, using more humane meat processing and cleaner facilities would do so. But then no more $.99 value menu burgers full of "mechanically and/or steam removed fat stuff" filled burgers either!

[/quote

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I agree completely with bringing real food to cafeterias. Its just the food needs to be really real. If we bring in industrialized foods that are just slightly more real than the industrially conventional stuff, then little is accomplished.

I recently took a group of kids to the Penn Quarter farmer's market. We gave then a box of sun gold tomatoes to try. Almost 3/4 of the group had never had a fresh tomato before! About 1/3 of the group had only the experience of holding one, refusing to eat anything so strange. Another 1/3 gobbled up every last tomato.

And you are teaching them. :) Every step helps.

Edited to say - I think that so many people are overwhelmed by the enormousness of the problem that they are discouraged from doing anything at all. If everyone did just one small thing, it would make such a difference!

And we can just hope that their parents can afford to pay $4 a pint for them. :( I splurged on $12 worth of cherry tomatoes today, and they will most likely all be gone by tomorrow night.

Showing kids how to enjoy fresh fruits in vegetables is great. Making sure that their parents can afford to buy them would be even better.

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And we can just hope that their parents can afford to pay $4 a pint for them. :( I splurged on $12 worth of cherry tomatoes today, and they will most likely all be gone by tomorrow night.

Showing kids how to enjoy fresh fruits in vegetables is great. Making sure that their parents can afford to buy them would be even better.

I know - it's tough. For this reason, sometimes I think Alice Waters is ahead of everyone else in thinking that small-scale community gardens are the way to go. As much as people hate her, she's right about it being a much smaller financial investment for a really great return. Plus, if kids grow the food, they are more likely to want to eat it. Then, of course, there's eradicating poverty...

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I know - it's tough. For this reason, sometimes I think Alice Waters is ahead of everyone else in thinking that small-scale community gardens are the way to go. As much as people hate her, she's right about it being a much smaller financial investment for a really great return. Plus, if kids grow the food, they are more likely to want to eat it. Then, of course, there's eradicating poverty...

Can't we all just face facts and say "we're all fucked" and be done with it?

The human brain would have to double in size; the penis, to shrink by half. Else: townhouses in Gainsville, the new Taco Bell in Chillum, and my fifty minute drive (*) tonight from Arlington to Silver Spring.

Cordially,

Miss Ann Thrope

(*) And all those damned people I saw on the beltway need to get out of their cars and bike, or walk, or take the bus.

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Can't we all just face facts and say "we're all fucked" and be done with it?

The human brain would have to double in size; the penis, to shrink by half. Else: townhouses in Gainsville, the new Taco Bell in Chillum, and my fifty minute drive (*) tonight from Arlington to Silver Spring.

Cordially,

Miss Ann Thrope

(*) And all those damned people I saw on the beltway need to get out of their cars and bike, or walk, or take the bus.

"One should never make judgments about humanity after driving on the beltway." I'm pretty sure that's a Ghandi quote.

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Can't we all just face facts and say "we're all fucked" and be done with it?

Cordially,

Miss Ann Thrope

It's not quite that bad, Miss Anne, but still we do need to face up to some facts.

It's all very nice to talk about getting close to where our food comes from, having community gardens, supporting our local farmers and all that. But casting that as the solution to our allegedly evil corporate agriculture system is a non-starter. It's like saying anybody can be president. That may be true, but not everybody can be president, because there's not enough room. Same with buying food. Anybody can buy local, small scale, whatever, but not everybody can. Small-scale agriculture can never feed all of us, because it can never have the capacity to do the job, nor can it have a cost structure that most people would accept. Thus it can never be more than a bit player around the edge, and it cannot be the "solution," to whatever truly is the "problem." To think it can is a pipe dream, IMO. Society is not going back to the 19th century.

Large-scale corporate farming does and will continue to produce most of our food; there is no real choice (btw most of those "corporations" are really solo farmers who have incorporated for business and tax reasons--they're mostly not international conglomerates). Consequently, if one insists on the view that all bigness is automatically evil, then one is going to remain frustrated and embittered forever, because most food is going to continue to come from those "evil corporate producers."

I think, from a social policy perspective, it's better to make peace with the reality of bigness, and focus on a more limited set of principles, changing the agricultural practices of big producers to whatever extent really is needed and appropriate and is based on science, not opinions and fears. This can be through better regulations, better information for people generally so they understand better what is in their interest to consume/avoid, etc. I seriously doubt anything more than that is in the cards. Those who want to avoid products they believe are bad for them, and can afford to do so, are free to do as they wish. But expecting people generally to fall in line, and fulminating about "the evil corporate food empire" do not, IMO, provide us a road map that is really going to get us anywhere.

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For this reason, sometimes I think Alice Waters is ahead of everyone else in thinking that small-scale community gardens are the way to go. As much as people hate her, she's right about it being a much smaller financial investment for a really great return.

Until a family of deer in one night eats your entire season's investment.

:(:):lol:

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johnb, you expressed perfectly what I have been thinking. Thank you for your thoughtful words.

Until a family of deer in one night eats your entire season's investment.

:(:):lol:

In the old days, before grocery stores, your family would be in bad shape. Most people don't think about how pervasive hunger and malnutrition were when people had to grow their own food.

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In the old days, before grocery stores, your family would be in bad shape. Most people don't think about how pervasive hunger and malnutrition were when people had to grow their own food.

My family did, up to the point that my Mom left home, grow their own food. You build fences to keep everything out, then shoot what tries to get into the fields or into the chicken yard, quail pen etc. Now that gardens are more a luxury, we don't take precautions as seriously because it isn't as important to our survival. But you still can buy deer fencing.

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My family did, up to the point that my Mom left home, grow their own food. You build fences to keep everything out, then shoot what tries to get into the fields or into the chicken yard, quail pen etc. Now that gardens are more a luxury, we don't take precautions as seriously because it isn't as important to our survival. But you still can buy deer fencing.

My maternal grandparents did too, and my mom and grandmother canned everything that they didn't eat. They even raised their own chickens for eggs and meat. My grandmother hated it, and they stopped as soon as my grandfather could make a living as a pharmacist. My paternal grandparents also gardened, until growing things in the Dust Bowl of Pawhuska OK became impossible. They were much happier rum running in Florida.

Raising enough food to feed a family is a serious time commitment, and one most people aren't interested in making, myself included.

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Which we certainly will next year. But we'd had the same garden here for 8 years, and this is the first time we got anything other than nibbling around the edges.

I've only had it happen one time when a friend and I rented a plot in a community garden. It didn't occur to us to find one with a fence. Heartbreaking.

Raising enough food to feed a family is a serious time commitment, and one most people aren't interested in making, myself included.

Too true. I can't count how many times I've told my students to thank the farmers for producing our food. Without them, we couldn't do what we want to do.

As for the rum running, I found out at my great uncle's wake two years ago that he ran moonshine during prohibition, also in Florida. I wondered what else I didn't know about him. :(

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I always taste before I buy. And the peaches were from Toigo. I already don't buy peaches from the grocery store, so it's disappointing to pay the local premium for something that isn't great.

at Dupont today, I was tasting the peaches around the market, and I remembered that the good ones I'd gotten last week were from Eli Cook in W. VA, not Toigo. Eli had the best-tasting peaches in the market again today.
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at Dupont today, I was tasting the peaches around the market, and I remembered that the good ones I'd gotten last week were from Eli Cook in W. VA, not Toigo. Eli had the best-tasting peaches in the market again today.

I've had the best luck with peaches and nectarines from Black Rock Orchard this year. Had the most tasteless melon from Toigo last week. Heartbreaking because the melons I've gotten from Quaker Valley have been terrific.

I just want ONE market that has all the vendors that I like so I'm not this weird market groupie stalking all the markets.

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Is it just me or is the produce this year just not that good? My main reason for going to farmers markets in the summer is for the 2 things I cannot find at the same level of quality at the grocery store (for me, it's WF). Those 2 items are peaches and tomatoes. Yes, I buy a lot of other things, but my main focus is peaches and tomatoes. We have been buying from Toigo and Twin Springs at the Bethesda Central Farm Market on Sunday mornings. We have been dismayed at the quality of the tomatoes and peaches -- especially at Toigo. We have opted to grill most of the tomatoes and peaches because in their natural state, they're just not that good. Is it the weather this year? What's going on?

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Is it the weather this year? What's going on?

I'm going to guess, based upon my one experience with a watery, favorless Cherokee purple tomato from a FM, that people had to irrigate to counteract the drought, and they watered too much. Hot, dry weather should produce great flavor in produce.

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Is it just me or is the produce this year just not that good? My main reason for going to farmers markets in the summer is for the 2 things I cannot find at the same level of quality at the grocery store (for me, it's WF). Those 2 items are peaches and tomatoes. Yes, I buy a lot of other things, but my main focus is peaches and tomatoes. We have been buying from Toigo and Twin Springs at the Bethesda Central Farm Market on Sunday mornings. We have been dismayed at the quality of the tomatoes and peaches -- especially at Toigo. We have opted to grill most of the tomatoes and peaches because in their natural state, they're just not that good. Is it the weather this year? What's going on?

It's perplexing isn't it? I've had great tomatoes this summer (Garner's), along with peaches (Kuhn's). The moist enjoyable corn so far? Safeway :(

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Lots and lots of samples at the Old Town Market yesterday.

CBS this morning did a segment on Farmers Markets. Some DC markets were featured, including Spring Valley and Busters!

They noted that even since last year, there has been a 13% (or was it 15%?) increase in the number of markets in the US. Over 1300.

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Three Springs has had outstanding peaches this year, including yellow donut peaches for the first time. They also grow some delicious heirloom tomatoes and lemon cukes.

I've had good corn from the Greenbelt market as well, but the 2 watermelons I got in my CSA were incredibly disappointing, not sweet at all. :( But that's really been my only major disappointment this year.

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I have always thought the local tag to be more meaningless than organic, and i don't think organic has a shred of value or, in the words of Inigo Montoya,

If I had a restaurant right next to a Smithfield CAFO in pig country, and I called up sysco and bought smithfield boxed pork, am I serving local.  Well.... yes.  Does that mean anything other than local is a meaning less term?

Go to the Dupont market.  This market has the highest collection of actual high quality farmers who, imho, do it right.  ANd I would bet that these farmers barely account for 50% of the product sold.  The others grow conventional strains of boring fruit and veges, pick at less than full maturity etc etc etc.  Might as well shop at Whole Foods.  But these guys are local.  They just grow like they are part of big ag.

Farm to Table gets in my craw too.  I mean every freaking potato at McDonald's comes form a farm.  All of us here come from the fertilization of an egg and sperm.  So what?  Just as with a person, how and in what conditions they are raised is hugely important {able to offset but not wipe out genetics}.  Farmer to Table is what is crucial.  Who grows you food?  How do they grow it?  Are they leaving the world a better place ecologically?  And, most importantly, how does it taste.

I have always bought traditional cheeses from Italy to sustain a production that is on the verge of disappearing.  I but certain fruit and vegetables from the West Coast, Wild Alaskan salmon, Pacific Northwest mushrooms.  Why? Because they are great products and supporting these food pathways is a good thing.  But other things being equal, I would rather have local.  However, I don't buy local artichokes as they don't hold a candle to the California ones I get and they are cost prohibitive.

I strive to put the best quality product on the plate.  First off it has to be sustainable to the best of my ability to define that term.  Then if it comes from local, great.  Not local, if I can't get as good locally, then that's great too.  But it has to taste great or I won't use it.

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They got the bug in Denver.

wow, a reporter from the New York Times thinks Denver winters are "brutal".

BTW, the first "farm to fork" exponent in Denver was the inimitable Teri Ripetto at Potager, Denver's best under-the-radar restaurant since it opened in 1997. Folks like Eric Seidel of Fruition, given top billing in the quoted NYT piece, frequently acknowledge that fact, but Ms. Ripeto's almost pathological avoidance of any form of self-promotion or, really, even minimal advertising for her restaurant means it's the fortunate out-of-towner indeed who finds his or her way over to 11th and Ogden.

I know I'm responding to a 3 yearn old post but dcs and Dino's posts brought this back to the top, and I also realized I haven't responded to any of the "Intrepid Traveler" posts to which this might have been a helpful response! And I'm eating there tonight, so it's at the forefront of my consciousness...

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