A million tiny hints pushed me into this challenge came about during the month of September, but here are the top 3:
The Spark
My book club chose Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver for September/October, a book about the rewards and challenges of growing your own food and depending on your community for what you eat. Barbara describes of her work, "Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, this book (released May 2007) tells the story of how our family was changed by one year of deliberately eating food produced in the place where we live."
Barbara and her family keep a webpage devoted to local eating and info on their experience, which you can find here.
I suppose my quest is sort of a mini Kingsolver journey. Certainly I'm not moving to a different state (what better place to be than California for local eating), and I can't exactly afford a farm in Santa Barbara, but my husband and I have a small garden, we subscribe to a CSA, and generally do without most processed foods so I'm not taking a huge leap. And that's what it's about, right? Making small adjustments towards the better.
The Challenge
Another reason for taking on this endeavor -I was challenged to.
I have spent my life involved in food. From waiting tables to moving to Italy with a bohemoth of a culinary student, from gardening (watching my husband garden) to working at our local Foodbank, food has been a part of my life. All this plus I like eating. I like it a whole, whole lot (see more about this in the third section of this post).
About a month ago an email came accross my desk with a link to the Edible Santa Barbara's Eat Local Challenge. Didn't I want to first hand find out how to source local wheat? Don't we want some chickens in our yard? How in the world do you can produce? Of course there are the obvious environmental concerns as well as my own selfish curiosities about using, making, and preserving local foods. No better way to satiate my curiosity and simultaneously help the envirnoment than to try this out.
For more on environmental benefits of eating locally, check out Janice Cook Knight's article here.
October is Santa Barbara's local food month. There is the SOL Foods Festival, a great kickoff and learning event for anyone embarking on the challenge. The more I dug around about what other people were doing, the more I wanted to dive in head first.
The Dividends
The last and final reason, the junk in the trunk.In a grand love affair with all things sugar, salt, and all things fatty, I have literally become a human Peep.
When I first moved to Santa Barbara from the Central Valley I weighed an embarassing 210 pounds. Lack of exercise, a 2 am diet of taco bell, and loss of motivation had packed on the extra 65 pounds over the recommended 145 lbs for my height (5'8").
6 months in Santa Barbara, diet, exercise, a bad breakup, and 3 gall stones later, I was down to 140 lbs. I had lost an incredible 60 lbs in 6 months. I kept it off, too, for a while....
Somehow you stop looking, you get married, get comfortable, and you work long hours. You forget about your health. 4 years after I lost all that weight, I'm back to 183. As hard as it is to say that number out loud - there it is. Erin Wilson, 5'8", 28 years old, 183 lbs.
I see this challenge as a way for me to start utilizing our garden and CSA box, an encouragement and guideline for eating better. I don't think I'm making a rash generalization when I assume that eating local and organic also means that I'm eating more healthfully.
If you are what you eat, and I'm eating Santa Barbara, won't I just automatically turn out beautiful?
I'm not going to be joining any marathons or starving myself. In fact, I'll probably try and get away with trying as much food and drink as possible while on this adventure. If I happen to shed some weight while I'm at it and become a healthier person (and I think I will), great.
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