Eating Local in the Big Apple

Posted in Uncategorized on July 22 2009, by Plant Talk

Leda Meredith holds a Certificate in Ethnobotany from the Botanical Garden, is author of Botany, Ballet, & Dinner from Scratch: A Memoir with Recipes, and hosts her own blog, Leda’s Urban Homestead.

When I set out to eat almost exclusively food grown within 250 miles of New York City, I had a lot of questions. I knew that eating a local-foods diet would reduce my carbon footprint as well as support small local farms and the local economy. I knew from my visits to farmers markets and from growing vegetables in a community garden how fabulous fresh food picked at its peak could be. But…

All of the other locavores I’d read about, including Barbara Kingsolver and Michael Pollan, had advantages over me when it came to eating local. They lived in a mild climate with a longer agricultural season, or had huge gardens or even farms. What I wanted to find out was could it be done by someone living in a tiny apartment on a limited budget, and with a hectic, multi-employer urban lifestyle? And what would I eat in winter?

I discovered that it is completely possible to eat a deliciously varied and healthy local foods diet in NYC without breaking the bank or requiring a 28-hour day. Local, organic food can be pricey, but it doesn’t have to be. There are ways to make a local foods diet almost as convenient as picking up the phone to order takeout or delivery.

I also learned that there are advantages to a local-foods diet beyond its environmental and culinary benefits. Every single one of the food-borne illness scares of recent years spread because of the centralization of products on huge agri-biz farms and processing plants. E. coli, salmonella, swine flu—none of those near-epidemics came from a small, organic farm. As a locavore, my food is safer.

A less tangible but equally important benefit of a local diet is that it is grounded in both community and nature. Eating seasonally keeps me connected to the natural cycles of plants and weather. And I’ve come to know the farmers who grow much of my food. They’ve become friends, and when I sit down to eat the food they grew, I think of them.

Eating local in the Big Apple is not only possible, it is a pleasure. Who knew that saving the world would taste this good?

Leda will teach Eating Local in the Big Apple on July 26 from 1 to 4 p.m. at The New York Botanical Garden. Register online or call 718.817.8747.