“Go Organic” “Be Vegan” “Eat Local”

Over the past decade we have seen the rise of different ethical food choices, from choosing organic over conventional farming, converting to vegetarianism or veganism or even doing the extreme and eschewing all cooked products in favor of raw foods; and, most recently, touting the ecological superiority of eating locally produced foods.

These lifestyle choices fairly go hand and hand, as most vegans will choose organic and opt for local farmer’s markets instead of nitpicking generic produce at brand chain supermarkets like Lucky’s or Safeway. And, of course, non-vegans who enjoy farmer’s markets will undoubtedly prefer the free-range organic Niman Ranch steak to the slab of plasticized meat available in muted yellow Styrofoam containers at Lucky’s , and perhaps tout their adherence to the Slow Food Movement and faithful memorizing of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. There’s an underlying assumption of leading a green lifestyle when a person chooses to become vegan or eat organic, or buy local; “new yuppies” is how I like to deem them, with their hybrid-driving, local organic seasonal vegan eating, yoga-mat toting, farmer’s markets browsing, artisanal product buying, Fair Trade abiding, ecologically aware ways (as opposed to “old yuppies” who love Starbucks, flout material dot-comer wealth, drive SUVS, and enjoy environmentally wasteful non-organic cotton clothing made from sweat shops).

As the economy takes longer and longer to pick up, more people are starting to take small economical matters into their own hands, the most obvious being that of growing their own produce, starting their own backyard gardens to forgo the costs of behemoth paychecks at Whole Foods. Having a vegetable garden has become the de rigueur move as of late, regardless of any actual savings – growing a garden in a backyard of limited space may only result in negligible savings, particularly when taking into account the labor – and others who want the freshness of homegrown food will consider community-supported agriculture and farmer’s markets. My boyfriend and I receive a weekly shipment from Eating With The Seasons that gives us local and organic produce from farms like the Herbert Family Organic Farm. The food is brighter and tastier than any store-bought produce, and made me realize I’ve been eating bland strawberries my entire life.

Currently, a debate is in the air regarding the pros and cons of eating from local farms – usually within a 100 mile radius of your foodshed – because it seems buying from local purveyors is not always the most environmentally sound solution if more emissions are generated at other stages of the product life cycle than during transport – food grown in areas where there is a high use of fertilizers and diesel-operated tractors is likely to be anything but carbon-friendly compared to farms operated under manual labor and compost, which are usually found overseas in economically disparaged countries. Not to mention home delivery like Eating With The Seasons can possibly be a better option than driving to farmer’s markets since a delivery truck will cover a large number of addresses, making the carbon emissions per customer pretty low. People also need to take into account the emissions produced by cold storage, packing, and transportation when shopping at farmer’s markets.

But this doesn’t dispute the fact that eating local is far more nutritious and better-tasting than eating from mass-produced sources that don’t take into account seasonality, cold storing their apples in the dead of winter. Eating locally means to eat seasonally, and it has been proven that eating in season means eating food at its most nutritional peak. Eating locally also supports your local economy and nurtures a sense of comraderie and community between consumers and farmers, a long lost art in the American community. And, best of all, buying from small time farmer’s markets gives you the opportunity to relish in the unknown varietals of the world, giving you a taste of the Early Girls, Lemon Boys, and Brandywines of the world, no longer just the quintessential red tomato.

Locavore was developed by Buster McLeod with the intention of providing users with instant access to information on local farms and food seasonality, using sources like the Natural Resources Defense Council and LocalHarvest, even the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year in Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver. Even if you are someone incredibly interested in eating local, it is difficult to find information on seasonal foods or farmer’s markets locations without some concerted effort. Maybe this is because most farmer’s market organizations are run by their farmers or local councils, which are often not the most technologically-adept.

Locavore gives you four tabs of information, allowing you to search by what’s In Season relative to your location, where the closets farmer’s markets are based on your current location, what is currently in season based on State, and even an option to search a food database should you be curious about when a certain food is in season. When choosing to search by California (Northern Region), I am shown a page with all the foods currently in season, along with a pie chart by each food showing how much longer it will be in season. For example, plums will be in season for approximately 5.5 more months while bok choy will only be in season for another 2 weeks (better hit up that bok choy! It tastes fabulous sautéed with some tamari and a dash of gomasio).

If you tap the “bok choy” you will be directed to a page highlighting all the states in which it still is in season, with the states listed below. The map is color coded according to seasonality, with red indicating, obviously, that time is running out for that particular food. The Market tab shows you all your local markets, including their operating dates and their distance from you. Tap a market to link to LocalHarvest, which gives you location and contact information, along with mapped directions and reviews. I thoroughly enjoyed the Food tab, as it provides easy up-front information on the seasonality of hundreds of different fruits and produce, along with a link along the bottom of the page to either Wikipedia or Epicurious, should you crave more specific knowledge and recipes.

I was a bit disappointed when searching for farmer’s markets that Locavore neglected to have any information on the Petaluma Farmer’s Market, which I know for a fact, is the one closest to me (I live perhaps 2 miles from it). It also seems that much of Locavore’s information is concentrated on the two polar coasts, will less information centered on the Midwest and the Plains. Perhaps demographically-speaking, more people interested in the Locavore movement reside within the green movement embracing populations of the West Coast and New England areas. I would expect, however, that as interest in farmer’s markets continues to grow, more information on farmer’s markets would be garnered for these areas.

The benefits of eating local can become valid or invalid depending on whether one rides a bike or drives to a farmer’s market, if the farmer chooses to use or not use cold storage, if a farm is operated under low-irrigation and manual labor or not, and so forth. It is impossible for most of the world to feed itself a diverse and healthy diet through exclusively local food production when much of the world lays on infertile lands — food will always have to travel and consumers living in developed nations will, for better or worse, always demand choices beyond what the season has to offer.

But if you have the opportunity to walk to your local market and chat about Pippin apples, and enjoy the crisp tart sensation upon tasting, and to encourage the beauty of community support, buy the apple knowing that in a world where pollution is already depleting us of our general health, why not opt for the food that provides the most condensed and natural nutrition, whatever the carbon footprint, whatever the cost.