The Future of Food

I just watched a terrifying documentary called "The Future of Food".  It discussed issues with current big business farming practices; including monocultures (which are destroying biodiversity) and genetically modified (GM) foods.  GM food, primarily corn, soybeans and canola, are becoming incorporated into farmers fields, even without their knowledge or consent.  And because the GM foods are patented, the companies creating them can sue (and win) against farmers for having the plants of their property, even if they did not want them there.  Not only that, but no safety tests have been done on GM foods, and the United States is one of the few countries that does not require foods that contain GM foods to be labeled (because the companies that sell them pay lobbyists big bucks to prevent this).  And now that corn is in pretty much everything at the supermarket (juice, yogurt, peanut butter, salad dressing, etc.) in the form of high fructose corn syrup we could be in trouble. Luckily, organic certification requires that food not contain GM products, so there's some assurance there.  Now that I am throughly afraid for the future of farming, I am happy that I will soon be supporting local small farmers who grow sustainably.

what's a locavore??

With encouragement from my friends I have decided to start a blog about my year-long local food adventure (with my husband).  I'm obviously not the first to take on this challenge, but I may be the first "low income" household to write about it.  My husband and I currently make a combined income of about $25,000 a year.  We are both students, so money is tight.  I often hear people say things like "it's too expensive to buy healthy food".  I'd like to show that it's not expensive, and support local farms in the process.  I have many reasons for choosing to eat local, which I will share over the next year.

According to Wikipedia: A locavore is someone who eats food grown or produced locally or within a certain radius such as 50, 100, or 150 miles (240 km).

I will define local as within 150 miles from Pittsburgh, and at least 80% of what I spend on food will be local.  Since I'm going to be doing this for a whole year there will be the added challenge of preserving food for the winter.  To do this I bought a chest freezer to save fruits, veggies and meat through the winter. Maybe I'll even venture into canning... we'll see.

I will begin on 6/1/10- when my community supported agriculture (CSA) program starts.  In the meantime I need to eat all the non-local food I have in the house, and find local farms that will supply me for the next year.

I'm looking forward to the upcoming challenge!