Eating locally

I'm currently reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan, a journalism professor at UC Berkeley. The book is an attempt to look at where our food comes from and the broader ranging impact of the agricultural practices that are now standard in this country. Some of it is a little gimmicky (such as reporting on eating a fast food meal from a car speeding through Marin county) and definitely not balanced, but overall he does a good job of reporting an interesting story. There is much in the book I wasn't aware of, such as the politics of corn and what a high percentage of our diets comes from corn (virtually every additive in every form of processed food, it seems, not to mention that it's the grain that feeds the cows, chickens, and pigs we eat). It's definitely worth a read.

There's a group called the Locavores who encourage people to eat locally. They are SF-based but have members from a variety of states, I believe. For many things it's possible for us to eat food produced within our "foodshed" (say, within 100 miles) but not everything (pasta? coffee and tea?). Still, I've been trying to do that a little more than I had in the past, partly because of reading the Pollan book. Their May eat-locally challenge blog is located here.