Green Your Eating

“Eat Locally” – But why?

Ask seven Omaha foodies why it’s important to eat locally and this is what you’ll learn.

• Taste & Nutrition: Local produce - harvested close to the “sell date,” - is fresher and more nutritious than national/global food because fewer “in transit” days are required to bring the food to your table. Choosing locally means you eat kale from Blair, Nebraska, not California.
  

• Food Security: Good food for all, this is “Food Security” at its simplest. Growing and purchasing locally grown/raised produce/meat increases the local food supply - providing greater access to healthy food for families/citizens. For more information see www.foodsecurity.org or www.usda.gov and search “Community Food Systems”

• Resiliency: – Producing and consuming within one region (e.g. local) reduces dependence on external resources. A “resilient” community indicates a city’s/town’s ability to be resilient enough – i.e. produce enough food locally – to prevent a crippled economy in the face of food or oil shortages.
  

• Economics: Purchasing food/meat from local farmers/ranchers, who direct funds back into the community, builds a sustainable economy. When you pay a local grower/rancher, you are paying for the production of your food – not for packaging, long-term storage, or long-distance transportation. And when food is in-season and plentiful, it’s usually inexpensive too!

• Bio-diversity: Liberating your food choices from a commercial market, dominated by a few hybrid varieties, means you have more decision-making power about what varieties of fruits/veggies/even meat you eat. A dwindling agricultural gene pool creates concern about the vulnerabilities of monotypic crops – think Irish potato famine and Food Security.

• Lifestyle: Gardening creates connections - connections between people and nature, consumers and producers, and citizens and their community. Growing food for yourself/family/friends/consumers can engender a sense of awe and it’s fresh-air-exercise!

• “Peak Oil”: Peak Oil is the concept that oil is a finite natural resource and the world is running out of cheap, easily accessible oil. If your food was 1) grown with commercial chemical inputs, 2) harvested with oil dependent equipment, 3) transported long-distances via trucks/ships, and/or 4) wrapped in petroleum-based packaging – then your food is Oily! Growing and eating local food can reduce our oil dependence and mitigate effects of “peak oil.”

Start “Eating Locally”

• Visit Farmers’ Markets in Omaha

o Omaha Farmers’ Market-Downtown – 11th & Jackson Streets – Saturdays, 8:00 am to 12:30 pm www.omahafarmersmarket.com
o Village Pointe Farmers’ Market – 168th & Dodge – Saturdays, 8:00 am to 1:00 pm www.voterealfood.com
o Omaha Rockbrook Farmers’ Market – 10744 W. Center Rd. – weekdays 10am to 6pm
o Benson Farmers’ Market – Military Avenue & Maple, Saturdays 8am to noon
o Bancroft Street Farmers’ Market – 2702 S. 10th Street, Sundays 10am to 1pm
o Cirian’s Farmer’s Market – 4911 Leavenworth Street, 402.551.1879
o For markets in the State of Nebraska, visit www.agr.state.ne.us/pub/apd/produce.htm or www.localharvest.org

• Join a Food Co-op Visit the Nebraska Food Co-operative – www.nebraskafood.org - to find a variety of local meats, cheeses, eggs, and baked goods.

• Join or start a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Visit www.csacenter.org or www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/csa/csa.shtml. The Alternative Farm Systems Information Center defines a CSA as a “community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farm becomes, either legally or spiritually, the community’s farm, with the grower and consumer providing mutual support and sharing responsibilities and benefits of food production.”

• Community Gardening allows you to cultivate food on a nearby plot of land with other food-interested folks. You can learn and grow side-by-side with neighbors and friends. Omaha’s community gardens include the City Sprouts garden at 40th & Franklin (www.omahasprouts.org), the Gifford Park Community garden at 35th & Cass St. (www.giffordparkomaha.org), and 13 BIG Garden Project gardens (www.gardenbig.org). To find out more about community gardening visit www.communitygarden.org.

• Be a Local Food Advocate Talk to the managers at your local grocery store and restaurants, members of the school board, representatives of your city, and your local corrections system. Explain to all these folks why choosing locally produced/raised food/meat is important and see how you or your organization can work with them to begin buying local!

• Grow Your Own Food: Land doesn’t need to be “set aside” to produce crops. You can plant a kitchen garden (www.kitchengardeners.org) or a square-foot garden (http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Build_a_Square_Foot_Garden) - a modified style of Biodynamic & French intensive gardening. Better yet, become a permaculturist. Developed by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, permaculture – permanent culture and permanent agriculture - includes good practices from many disciplines and systems, and offers them as an integrated whole, a sustainable earth care system. Bill Wilson of Midwest Permaculture explains, "Permaculturists can grow food just about anywhere, repair environmentally damaged lands, design lovely and long-lasting green buildings, produce power, run successful, people-oriented businesses, and build authentic community--all by using the same fundamental permaculture principles and applying a Permaculture Ethic: Care of People--Care of the Earth--Share the Surplus." (www.midwestpermaculture.com)

Don’t limit yourself – try locally “value added” foods like flour! Visit www.agr.state.ne.us and click the “Food & Meat Directory” link under “Brochures.”

Please attend the Monthly Green Living Workshop: Green Your Eating - 10:00am to 12noon on Saturday, July 26, 2008, at Village Pointe Farmers’ Market – (south side of Village Pointe Shopping Center, 168th & W. Dodge Rd.) Learn what questions to ask your local growers, see a demonstration by chefs of the Metropolitan Community College Institute of Culinary Arts, and be introduced to food storage – and sign-up for a chance to win Green-Food prizes. RSVP to Trilety Wade at trilety@hotmail.com.

The event is free and open to the public.

Sponsored by the Green Neighborhood Council of the Green Omaha Coalition (www.greenomahacoalition.org)

Collaborative effort by Food Choices Committee of the Green Neighborhood Council – (Trilety Wade, Kathy Townsend, Mary Green, Nancy Williams, Katja Koehler-Cole, Daniel Lawse)