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Movement asks people to consume only foods raised locally to help environment, economy
By Lisa Abraham
Beacon Journal food writer
Published on Wednesday, Oct 10, 2007
How hard is it to spend a year eating only food that was grown, raised or made in Ohio?
Ask Eric and Erica Matheny in March.
Right now, they're feasting.
Since June, the Akron couple has been eating the best the region and the state have to offer. By shopping farmers' markets and buying a local farm share, they've found enough produce, meat and cheese to overfill their larder.
The Mathenys are part of a growing national movement of people committed to eating locally. They took the plunge in June, swearing off all processed food and eating only food produced in the region.
Local eaters, or ''locavores,'' define their boundaries in various ways 100 miles from home is a common gauge. The Mathenys are defining local as within Ohio, which means one of the nation's largest breadbaskets is their shopping cart.
For the young couple and 4-year-old son, Ethan, the decision to eat locally became a matter of putting their grocery money where their mouths were. The eating-local movement reflects their personal philosophies about how they want to eat fresh, healthy and natural and they decided it was time to be true to their convictions.
''We just enjoy the whole experience of knowing where the food comes from,'' said Erica Matheny, 32.
They planted a garden in their backyard and purchased, along with another family, a share at Crown Point Farm and Education Center in Bath Township, which has garnered them tubs full of fresh seasonal produce each week.
''The produce tastes so much better than the produce at the grocery store,'' Erica said.
In recent years, eating locally has gotten attention as part of the national discussion on food.
It is rooted in the Slow Food movement, which began in Italy in 1986 when food writer Carlo Petrini organized a protest of the construction of a McDonald's near the Spanish Steps in Rome. His protesters were armed with bowls of penne pasta, to stress the importance of local food over fast food.
Three years later, he founded Slow Food International, named to show his opposition to the fast-food, mass-produced lifestyle that was taking over the world.
Slow Food has expanded to more than 80,000 members worldwide. Slow Food USA has 160 chapters, one of which is Slow Food Northern Ohio in Cleveland.
At the heart of the Slow Food movement is a concern that the more industrialized our food becomes, the more we lose taste, local tradition, variety and quality. It's also a way of life that centers on food preparation and eating together as a way of socializing and keeping our families close.
The Cuyahoga Valley Countryside Conservancy in Peninsula has been promoting local eating, asking visitors to its farmers' markets to consider taking the ''eat local challenge'' to spend at least 10 percent of their grocery money or $10 a week on locally produced food during September and October.
The conservancy's reasons to promote eating locally are ecological and economical:
Reducing the number of miles food travels before reaching the plate, which reduces pollution, lessens the country's dependence on fossil fuel and improves the environment.
Helping local farmers prosper by putting more money directly into their pockets.
Pumping money back into the local economy.
Putting seasonal foods at their freshest and most nutritious on your plates.
Darwin Kelsey, executive director of the conservancy, said the movement has been slow to catch on. In 2006, fewer than 100 farmers' market visitors agreed to take the challenge.
He said the conservancy wasn't able to promote the challenge as much as it would have liked this year because of staffing shortages. But Kelsey is confident it will be able to focus more on the program in 2008, encouraging businesses and corporations to get involved as well.
One group that has stepped up to the plate in the eat local/Slow Food movement is restaurant chefs.
David Uecke, chef and owner of Anthe's Restaurant on Manchester Road, is a member of Slow Food Northern Ohio and has worked to use local meat and produce in the restaurant he purchased in March.
For several months of the year, it's easy.
''Once we get outside of these bountiful months that we've just been through, your selection really starts to dwindle. That's one of the big roadblocks in getting people to eat local,'' he said.
Between packaged, processed foods and industrial farms where fruit, vegetables and animals are mass-produced, Americans have grown used to having everything all the time. Years ago, people ate what was available seasonally because there was no other choice, he said.
''It's getting people to eat seasonal again,'' he said. ''They want strawberries all the year round, they want tomatoes all the year round.''
Uecke, who spent the last nine years living in South Carolina, said the variety of foods raised in Ohio is amazing and residents can eat well locally with a little effort.
''In terms of beef and pork and even goat producers locally, we have one of the best goat cheese makers, Lake Erie Creamery out of Cleveland.'' There's even local maple syrup.
Chefs know that buying a local ingredient, when it is in season, means it's at the peak of ripeness and flavor, he said.
''A tomato in August in Ohio is fundamentally better than a tomato in Ohio in February, and you also know where your tomato is coming from in August,'' he said.
Uecke said there are pluses to the globalization of food the ability to feed people on a large scale and to obtain foods that aren't available locally. In Ohio, for instance, we're short on fish.
But he believes the mass production of food has resulted in a poorer quality of food on our tables and has left the food supply vulnerable to widespread contamination.
Cost may be one reason people are reluctant to eat locally. In general, food from farmers' markets costs more than in grocery stores, although some stores, particularly at this time of year, will sell locally grown produce at competitive prices.
Eric Matheny, 31, said that for his family's effort, the question is one of defining cost. While the cost may be more per tomato, he prefers to calculate hidden costs, like how the use of fuel to transport food thousands of miles affects the overall cost of gasoline in the country.
Matheny, who works for the Summit County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, said he considers the costs to the environment and to his family's health from eating foods that aren't as fresh or ones that are pumped with preservatives and artificial ingredients.
The Mathenys say even taking into account the $350 they paid for their half share at Crown Point, they haven't spent more than $100 to $150 a week on food since they began their local eating.
Erica Matheny said the experience of getting to know the farmers who produced her food is also something she can't get at a grocery store.
A doctoral candidate and professor at Cleveland State University, she's been lectured on the ''economies of scale'' from fellow professors, but doesn't buy their arguments.
On a blog she's been keeping about the family's local eating experience, Erica mulls the question of whether it's better for individuals to drive 20 minutes to a farmers' market to buy three tomatoes, or whether it's better to put 50,000 tomatoes on a truck from California to supply an Akron grocery store.
''It is a very one-dimensional argument which doesn't take into account the benefit to local farmers, food safety issues, pesticide issues, human-rights issues to growers/harvesters in foreign countries,'' she writes. (Read the blog at http://localfoodakron.blogspot.com.)
With farmers' markets coming to a close, the Mathenys have been freezing meat, cheese and produce to eat throughout the winter. ''I probably should be freezing more,'' Erica said.
They also have created a list of local farmers they can tap during the winter for restocking, and will get winter vegetables from Crown Point.
Erica said the family has made exceptions for ''necessities'' things such as coffee and olive oil, which aren't native to Ohio. ''And beer,'' her husband added.
But Erica said they have bought beer from local brewers, such as Great Lakes Brewing Co., and coffee from local roasters, who purchase their beans through fair-trade practices.
And while they have eaten well trying items like bison and fennel for the first time they do miss some foods.
Salmon comes to mind quickly when Erica considers what foods she would like to have. ''Orange juice and boxed macaroni and cheese.''
While her son has taken to pasta with garlic and olive oil, they do miss juice.
''We're really looking forward to cider,'' Erica said.
Lisa A. Abraham can be reached at 330-996-3737 or labraham@thebeaconjournal.com.
How hard is it to spend a year eating only food that was grown, raised or made in Ohio?
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