One week later.....

I'm going to finish up a few thoughts about my month of local, and then move on to my new blog: The Good Food Muse (www.thegoodfoodmuse.blogspot.com.) I've found that I've become addicted to blogging about the food I eat. It'll be nice not to feel obligated to write every day, but I enjoy taking pictures and making some sort of record of the wonderful food I cook and eat every day. I've just started a little vegetable garden in my front yard, so I'll write about that to.

So what am I taking away from my month of local food?

• I feel so much better on a non-wheat, non sugar diet! The difference was really amazing. I managed to lose a little weight (something I haven't successfully done for years) and feel great all month. I don't think I realized how good I felt - when you're digestive system is working perfectly, you don't always stop to notice I guess. I definitely noticed a change when I went back on the non-local diet though. I don't want to go into too much detail about the inner workings of my digestive system, but things are generally more sluggish, and I feel heavier. Sugar is especially making me feel weird - shaky and light headed. I guess because my body got used to life without it, re-introducing it was that much harder. Also, I've realized how little my body likes wheat. I think the lack of wheat in my month of local food really contributed to how good I felt. Especially when you consider how much energy flour takes to produce (threshing, separating wheat from chaff, grinding, etc.) potatoes just make more sense anyway. Not that I think wheat is all bad - but I've really realized how much we lean on it unnecessarily.
  

• Eating local in September in Humboldt is not that hard. I really didn't suffer in the least. The hardest part was getting the energy and imagination to cook every night, but once I got over that it was easy. Leftovers are key, that's for sure. It looks like maybe the co-op will do a month long local challenge next summer - I can't wait to do it again and help others realize how easy this really is once you make the commitment.
  

• I really love having a connection to the farmers that grow the food I eat. This is almost a spiritual thing for me. I talk to a lot of the farmers daily through my work, so I'm especially lucky in this regard. I not only know many farmers pretty well, but I know their relationships with each other. I could have written a poem about each dish: who grew it, what the relationships between all the farmers who grew the food is, and what the relationship between all the flavors is. I really felt that I was collaborating with the farmers in some way by taking the food that they grow, blending it with the food of other farmers, and taking it that last step from raw ingredients to delicious meals. It was a sharing of food production rather than a one sided give and take. For me, I think the next step would be to only eat food frown by people I know.....

That's all I can think of now. I'm sure I'll write more about all of this in my new blog!