Eating Locally?

[PrimalPrime]

Hey guys

Do you all tend to eat locally? And do you always find what you are looking for?  I have trouble sticking to a local diet mainly because its hard to find organic meat so I end up by some crazy tropical fruit for the sake of it being "organic". I was doing some water testing three feet deep in clothes on the river and then sat through a three-hour lecture in cold air conditioning. by the time i got home to my supermarket the only organic thing i could find was dates. a delicacy of mine, i stopped eating them for the sake of locality, i live in a humid climate, theres no need for dates, which must be the reason why i feel like they don't sit well everytime i eat them.

I'd love to hear your pitfalls to eating locally and how you cope if you do not experience any shortcomings in obtaining the right foods

[eveheart]

"Minor Outlying Islands"? Does that mean raw fish?

Meat-wise, organic does not mean grass-fed. I started out with lamb while I searched for other stuff to eat. I tried online ordering, but the more I find local sources, the less I have to order online. There are tons of suggestions on this forum, that's where I get all my info and ideas. Happy hunting!

[Iguana]

Hey guys
Do you all tend to eat locally?

Not necessarily. It depends were I am and what is available around. In winter there isn’t much to eat around here. Astronauts on the moon didn’t eat locally, neither do submarine crews nor people in big cities.

If you really want to eat only what you find by walking around, your food choice may be extremely limited and you’ll soon get bored of the raw paleo nutrition.

[miles]

I do, and I don't look for anything in particular. There's a good range of stuff in the organic store in my town which varies seasonally and I just choose what I want from that. I get my meat from local farms through a local butcher.

[TylerDurden]

I can't eat locally, I often have to buy organic fruit from abroad.

[Projectile Vomit]

I eat mostly local foods. The meat and fat I eat is mostly wild, including locally hunted deer and back fat from local deer. I haven't been eating very much plant food lately, but what little I do eat is wild gathered. I'll be primarily a carnivore over the winter. The other evening I shared a grouse dinner with a friend, with wild jerusalem artichokes and locally grown garlic.

[PrimalPrime]

Lucky you. If I had ease of access to organic grass finished meats or wild game(even better!) I would slow my consumption of these tropical fruit that come my way. Lately ive been eating only organic apples, but even they are probably grown outside this area. But you definitely make me feel motivated to try to a primarily carnivorous diet this winter, as nature intended me.

I live in Canada by the way

good luck!

[Iguana]

What exactly is meant by « local » should be defined first. All the food we buy from shops or markets has been transported by trucks, ships or airplanes over a certain distance. Furthermore, if you live somewhere away from the shop or market, you have to transport that food from the shop or market to your home.

For example, the next organic food shop is 30 km away from my place. So, I drive 60 km in my car to bring back home a few kg of stuff, which means that the fuel consumption per kg transported is much more than the amount of fuel burned by kg of stuff in the semi-trailer truck that brought 25 tons of food at once over 1000 km.

If you eat seafood while living 400 km away from the nearest coastline and even further from the next fishing harbor, you obviously don’t eat locally.

The problem is that by trying to eat locally, more often than not you restrict you food choice drastically and this doesn't bode well for repairing a body damaged by several years of cooked and junk food.

But you definitely make me feel motivated to try to a primarily carnivorous diet this winter, as nature intended me.
I live in Canada by the way

How long Canada has been populated ? Long before mankind mastered the fire ? I doubt it.

[miles]

The food I eat is mainly from within ~20miles, and I walk to the shop which is less than a mile away. The abattoir of the butcher is also within 20 miles and the farms the animals are from too. The wild game is less than 15miles away.

[Neone]

The wild pears, grapes and apples are easy to ID and are ridiculously abundant in my area (southern ontario). I gathered 15 pounds of pears in about 3 minutes yesterday.

[PrimalPrime]

"locally" would be foods that have grown in that specific climate I would say. We can keep looking further into defining the word or, i can try to understand it with my young mind. i'll say maybe the food that grows in my geographical region is a weapon to fight whatever the weather has in store for me. in the desert, for instance, high-glycemic dates would be a way to keep light while quenching the thirst in a water-scarce environment. in the coastal tropics coconut water would be a fresh alternative to seawater. i dont pretend like i know, im just trying to find my way, like yourself bro. so basically i just try to eat things that come from areas with weather and climate patterns like mine. maybe it doesn't do anything at all but just make me feel good. maybe thats enough...for now.

[RogueFarmer]

I have dairy cows and grow most of my own food :p

[Dorothy]

I have dairy cows and grow most of my own food :p

A friend says you what you do Spacecowboy is "Zero Mile Dining" - and I am attempting to do as much of that as I can while also taking into consideration what Iguana says about diversity.

Hmmmmmm. Does that mean that my greenhouse fruits I grow one day will be considered local? 

[Löwenherz]

Hey guys

Do you all tend to eat locally?

Yes, as much as possible! At the moment nearly 100%.

For me locally means food from within our country.

Löwenherz

[Iguana]

Then there's quite large difference in area if you live in Luxembourg or in Russia... 
What if your country's borders are changed, for example when Russia was only a part of the USSR and now? Would you change your food choice in such a situation? 

[Löwenherz]

Then there's quite large difference in area if you live in Luxembourg or in Russia... 
What if your country's borders are changed, for example when Russia was only a part of the USSR and now? Would you change your food choice in such a situation?

Iguana, you mean that my precise scientific definition of "locally" is not 100 percent politically correct?

Well, then, if I lived in Luxembourg I eventually just had to adjust the borders of my country a little bit. The lazy baguette eating French could be easy prey. After conquering Paris and Bordeaux and Marseille and Montpellier aND AND AANNDD ... I could eat very LOCALLY again. 

It's so simple, isn't it?

Löwenherz

This discussion is 100 percent scientific proof that long term raw paleo eaters have NO problems at all!

[Dorothy]

Texas food vs. Hawaii food vs. Alaska food. Now THAT'S some diversity!

I'm going to consider Texas my country instead of the US me thinks then Lowen. 

[AnopsStudier]

Id like to bring up this thread again..

Does it not make sense that we are supposed to be eating foods that grow around us?  Thats what the earth had provided for animals to survive in those conditions?  (if we lived outside)

but by using heated shelter we kind of  are trying to re create our natural environment ..... so we still do need some of these non local foods

[nicole]

The best thing about eating locally is that you can visit the farms to make sure everything is positive. I don't think there is anything wrong with food that has been transported a ways as long as it is refridgerated/frozen. I wouldn't eat anything from out of the country though.

[lena]

I believe local food, especially produce, is better quality for several reasons:

-not exposed to radiation from being shipped on planes
-not exposed to gases used to make it ripen, picked when it's actually ripe
-no loss of nutrients from sitting for days
-all produce at grocery stores is washed with chemicals (even organic)

but i think the most important reason is that all produce available in grocery stores is grown on huge monoculture farms (small farms dont sell at grocery stores) which is both unsustainable/destroying the planet and creates really low nutrient foods. organic foods sold at farmers markets are grown on small, sustainable farms and are much higher in nutrients

There is a debate about whether or not we are suited to eat exotic fruits, but no matter what the truth of that is, local fruits are definitely higher quality

[AnopsStudier]

I live in the midwest.  My body craves cantaloupe, coconuts, etc... i cant do that local