Shopping (and Thinking) Local

As we often do on Sunday morning's, Anne and I went shopping for some groceries this morning at one of the local Farmer's Markets. We in the River City community are fortunate, as there are at least four days a week during which there is a Farmers Market open. Within bicycling (or a short automobile drive) distance there are vendors (and the occasional folk singer/band) offering local produce and baked goods, in addition to jams, honey and grass-fed beef.

This morning, we purchased only two squash (which we also recently harvested from our small garden) and potatoes. ON our way home, we stopped by the neighborhood cooperative market for some other things, such as soap and coffee. While there, I was pleased to noticed that the coop has been identifying clearly on shelves which products are locally produced. There were a number of different products (in addition to breads and vegetables which are "unmarked," but obviously grown or baked locally), including jellies and a variety of nut butters to name a few.

As I have begun reading Plenty, by Smith and McKinnon, one of the concerns the authors' had early on while setting out to maintain a 100 mile diet, was how much variety they could hope to find in a regional diet. While marveling at the label for a locally produced plain yogurt, I got to thinking: If one hundred miles is one "standard" for determining "local-ness," I wonder how far the large the diameter of one-hundred mile circle would be on a map with River City (where we live) as it's center point? Just what products, vendors and farms qualify as local if I were to eat a 100 mile diet?

Breathe in, breathe out… YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!