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What Works in Public Education

Bag Lunch: Eating Locally Is More Sustainable, Nutritious, and Delicious

by Ann Cooper

One key to a healthy diet is to eat regionally and seasonally. Food grown close to home is at its most nutritious because it is picked close to its peak, and it is less likely to be treated with herbicides or pesticides used in countries with looser regulations than those governing our local farms.

Products from your "foodshed," loosely defined as farms within 100 miles of your home, are also going to be more flavorful for the same reason. But the practice of eating locally isn't simply a way to eat tastier food that is better for you. Eating locally is a way to reduce your impact on the planet. It's an exercise in multitasking that supercharges your meals with taste and nutrients while reducing your carbon footprint. The choice? Would you rather eat organic strawberries from a local farm or the strawberries imported, at great energy expense, from Chile, where herbicides and pesticides are freely used?

Even if the choice seems easy, the actual practice of local eating can be a challenge. The best first step is to begin shopping at farmers' markets where farm employees are selling their own products. That way you can ask where the farm is located, and, if it is in the 100-mile radius, before buying you can check on how the food is grown (Is it pesticide-free? Certified organic?). Even better than shopping at farmers' markets would be visiting a local farm to buy from a farm stand, or joining a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm. When you can't get to the farmers' market or a local farm stand, support small grocery stores and co-ops, and always find out where the food is from.

Even with a great source for ripe and delicious food, you obviously have to roll with the seasonal punches. You might find beautiful fresh, local strawberries, peaches, tomatoes, corn, or basil for a few short weeks of the year, and then they're gone. My suggestion is that you buy as much of these as possible in season, eat your fill, and then freeze, can, dry, pickle, or preserve as much as you can to enjoy these riches when the season is over. Another joy of eating locally, especially in the winter, is finding and sharing recipes for unusual root vegetables, dark leafy greens, and winter squashes that you might not otherwise cook.

Fortunately, there are more and more resources for those of us dedicated to eating well and living lightly on the land. In the San Francisco Bay area, the mission of a group called Locavores, is to educate around the paradigm of eating only foods grown or harvested within a 100-mile radius of San Francisco and helping residents try it for a month. They have produced great guidelines for making food choices, which can be found on their Web site. Other online resources for eating locally offer tips on where to find local food in your area and recipes that help you creatively use the abundance that comes from eating with the seasons.

Additional resources and inspiration can be found in the following books: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver; Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating From America's Farmers' Markets, by Deborah Madison; and Coming Home to Eat: The Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods, by Gary Nabhan.

Sometimes, despite your dedication to sustainability, you will have to make choices that take you out of the foodshed. Often, the best you can do is commit to using local and seasonal products whenever possible and, when you can't find a product within your 100-mile foodshed, like coffee for example, try to find organic and perhaps fair-trade and shade-grown coffees.

The farther from a local producer the product travels, the more important certification of some kind becomes, and certification often means more than just organic. I mentioned fair-trade, but you may also look for beef that's been "grass-finished" or "grass-fed," seafood that is "wild," poultry that is "pastured," and pork and other products that are "heirloom" varieties. All of those labels can help guide you to more delicious varieties of food grown by small family farmers and small producers who need your support. We protect ourselves this way, too, as food from local producers is the safest possible food you can eat and serve your family. Food grown and produced by members of your extended community is food you can trust.

I hope your 100-mile meals are delicious, as well as environmentally helpful and community-supportive. For me, as a chef, taste and flavor are incredibly important. Most of us are familiar with the four components of taste: sweet, sour, bitter, and salty. The Japanese identify a fifth component -- now becoming recognized in America -- called umami, meaning savory or meaty. But one of the definitions of umami that I like best is, eating food at its peak, at the height of its deliciousness. That is what eating a local diet can become: Eating food that is not only at its delicious perfection, but also food that supports your community and nature.

Ann Cooper, as director of nutrition services for the Berkeley Unified School District, in Berkeley, California, works to transform cafeterias into culinary classrooms for students. Her latest book, cowritten with Lisa M. Holmes, is Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children. Visit her Web site, Lunch Lessons, at www.lunchlessons.org.

This article was also published in Edutopia Magazine, October 2007