No, and though I understand the arguments and logic for eating as much local food as possible, I see no reason to restrict myself to nothing but the stuff found in my immediate area.
No citrus? No coffee? No bananas? You must be joking. Not a chance.
This is actually addressed in the Eat Local Challenge blog I linked above.
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Again, it’s not about restricting yourself to just what’s around you for all food. At least not for most people who try to eat locally, though the man in Discover Magazine has gone that far. Frankly, I’m not up for roadkill myself. It’s just a matter of thinking about your food, where it comes from and what goes into it. Some people may not chose to do so, and that’s their choice. However, I think it’s unfair to characterize everyone who does chose to make those considerations as loonies who not only don’t eat food from far away but disdain those who do.
As I read recently, “It takes a lot of money to ‘tread lightly upon the earth’”, and it’s not my place to judge why anyone else can’t or won’t. Hell, there’s many times when I can’t make that move myself. For me, I just want to be aware of what I’m eating and where it came from.
I think that it is unfair to assume that anyone who doesn’t make the same choices you do has never considered the issue.
If I came across as saying that, I did not mean to and I apologize for doing so. I am not trying to say that if a person doesn’t make the same choices I do, then it’s clearly because they haven’t thought about it. I am trying to give people some information about the ideas, because I find it interesting and worthwhile. Perhaps someone who truly hasn’t thought about it now has some more information, and that’s what I am trying to share. That person may look at everything and still say they have no desire to do this. Fine. But the inclination is clearly there in many people to say, “Nothing that isn’t near me? Forget it!” without looking any closer, and I hope that someone who is originally inclined to do that is interested in delving a little deeper when they realize that many (maybe even most, I’m not sure) people interested in local foods are not giving up everything that isn’t from within X miles of them.
Maybe you wouldn’t, but studies of local economies say you should, if you know what’s best for you and your community. See Michael Shuman’s Going Local. Locally owned businesses recycle dollars in your region at a much higher rate than national chains. Or see also BALLE and Local First.
So, are you stubborn about everything, or just suffering from a lack of motivation? Or do you occasionally think, “I’ve had nothing but the stuff from outside my immediate area, maybe I should try something from a neighbor?”
If you (and not just you Aesiron, but the collective you- ye, prehaps) work in a service or retail job, working for the locals, why not repay that local business to your local farmer?
I live in Australia and eat cherries the produce of California so I guess I don’t qualify.
Even if you’re doing it while wearing a $5 Chinese shirt? Why not pay back the global economy? I’m not sure where the pro-local people want to draw their arbitrary lines. Why buy Chinese when you can buy American? Why buy American when you can buy in your local state? County? Town? Why not just become a self-sufficient hermit, doing many things badly?
Our CSA includes recipes in every box, for just about every item in the box.
Comes in very handy for things like kale and cactus paddles and other misc. things I’d not really be sure how to prepare. I’ve actually learned how to prepare and have experienced a lot of new or interesting dishes thanks to the surprises in our box.
One thing I’ve thought of is that there’s a lot of transport/fuel used for food from elsewhere, at least there’s a directly tangible benefit, i.e. food you can’t get locally.
I think the more tremendously wasteful and unnecessary transport expense and pollution coming from business people flying all over the place just to go to stupid meetings or to kiss some poohbah’s asses.
Of course, if it wasn’t for all those stupidly wasteful business people, airfares would probably be at least three times more expensive for everyone.
::sigh:: we’re really screwing ourselves up and can’t afford to stop… 
On the contrary, I think people who are really committed to local eating are more likely than your average bear to also attempt the same for clothing and other items. Electronics are harder, because there’s just so little made here, it seems. But the affluent area I used to live in has lots of locally - sewn, and sometimes locally woven, clothing and handicraft stores nestled amongst our CSA’s and mom ‘n’ pops. The “think local” thing isn’t just about food, you’re right. It’s about doing as much of your shopping locally as possible, for all things that you can. Its two main goals have already been stated: reducing transportation’s costs to the environment and stimulating the local economy. And from that point of view, the localler, the better. If you can find it on your block, that’s awesome. In your neighborhood, great. In your city, swell; in your state, good; in your region, nice…
And yes, if you do it while wearing a $5 Chinese made shirt, then that’s better than not doing it at all. This seems to be a newish idea in the eco-struggle: doing what you can, now, is better than doing nothing until you can be perfect and never getting there. Can’t install a sustainable garden on your rooftop watered with grey water and fed with the contents of your composting toilet? That’s okay, although it’s still a great goal. But how 'bout consolidating your grocery store trip with the trip to the dry cleaners and saving a little gas and emissions from your car in the meantime.
People who buy from a local farmer’s market while wearing a sweatshirt T aren’t necessarily hypocrites, they’re making small, sustainable changes in their lifestyle.
No, it’s not clear at all. I’ve thought about this, and rejected it. I simply do not agree that the “buy local” concept will contribute to the common good.
I have no real argument with that, WhyNot. I guess what I’m getting at, in a way, is that we don’t really know what the comparative benefits are of doing this. A planeload of Chinese widgets will leave a big-ass carbon footprint, but is that offset by environmental economies of scale in other ways? Maybe a Chinese widget making machine drawing massive electrical power from the grid does less damage (do to efficiency) than a well-meaning local guy making widgets one at a time in his garage, using power tools.
I don’t claim to have the numbers on this, but I worry people on both sides are flying blind here.
Yep, I agree with you, too.
I find the local economy argument the better one, at the moment. The other one falls under “food for thought”, but hasn’t really made me change my ways. But buying handmade soap from Heidi, knowing that she might hire me for child care in return, does influence my decisions. In a very visible, traceable way, that’s an example of a really local economy between me and one other person I know personally. I support that economy out of self-interest, not high minded theory! 
I commute to work in my Japanese car for a multinational corporation that outsources for dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of other multinationals. Go ahead and feel superior to me. I don’t care.
I don’t understand what you’re trying to say to me here. I explicitly said there that I was NOT trying to say that because you do not make the same choices I do it’s because you haven’t thought about it.
On second thought, RickJay, don’t worry about it. I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, and I also was surprised that I’d come across previously as claiming those who weren’t “on my side” weren’t thinking or informed. I’m going to guess at this point that I am not communicating what I’m thinking and trying to say via writing well, and I’m going to let this one go for now. Maybe if and/or when the next thread on eating, buying, etc local comes up I will be more clear in both my writing and my reading.
I definitely could, with some preparations. My host mom (the woman I lived with for my first three months in BG) does this, I am sure. She lives on a pension of 100 leva (50 euro) a month, so she pretty much has to to subsist largely on what she can grow in her garden. She cans a TON of stuff for the winter. She’s poorer than most Bulgarians, but not remarkably so. I think my own lifestyle is more unusual - I don’t can or preserve anything. I don’t know how and don’t really care to learn. I can afford to eat the mandarins imported from Turkey all winter. (I have canned fruit my host mom gave me, though, just in case. She worries about me.)
Of course locally grown food tastes better, but there’s something to be said for being able to buy something you want out of season. As it is, I have to live “with the seasons”. I can only buy leeks in the fall, and strawberries in the summer. Broccoli and spinach have a very short window that has just closed. I live in such a small town that it’s generally not worth it for the stores here to import such odd things from the other side of the world when maybe only a couple people would want it. Some things are very nearly impossible to find in this country, period, like avocadoes, asparagus, and celery. One of the things I’m looking forward to the most about getting back to the US is being able to buy what I want, when I want. Like other people have said, it’s one of the benefits of civilization.