Today!

Here is what i ate today:

Breakfast - Plain Yogurt (Stonyfield in Londonderry, NH - 51.5 miles) with Maple Syrup (North Brookfield, MA - 59.6 miles)

Snack - Carrots (Hadley, MA - 101 miles)

Lunch - Salad (HOME GROWN GREENS!!! 0 miles), potatoes (Lewis creek farm in Starksboro, VT - 13.5 miles from Bristol, VT 228 from boston) and onions (Warwick, NY - 185 miles from south deerfield, 228 miles from boston)

Dinner- Nachos : Chips (Needham Heights - 5.6 miles) Salsa (Concord, MA - 21.4 miles) cheese (Providence, RI - 49.6 miles) Potatoes (potatoes (Lewis creek farm in Starksboro, VT - 13.5 miles from Bristol, VT 228 from boston) Parsnips ( Burlington, Vt - 22.1 miles from bristol, VT 223 from boston)

Update

I've gotten behind, as usual, because its been really hard to type. i've upgraded to bandaids on my fingers now and will get my stitches out in a few days, but it still hurts a bit. Anyway. Its' been really hard to feed myself local food without the use of my left hand. not to literally put food in my mouth, but to get food, and to prepare it (chopping, cooking, ect.) So i've had to make some compromises. The week kid of blurred together, but i've been eating a lot of the same things, so i'll make a list of the local and not local food i ate in the last week:

non local-

bagel Turkery sandwhich from bruggers, darwins, sandwhich, bravo pizza x 2, spinach salad, tuna sandwich, fries, wings

local-

spinach x3, oatmeal x 3, chorizo sausage x 3, pasta with sauce and cheese, eggs, potatoes, cabbage onion soup x 2, tortilla chips, crackers, home fries

so really not good on the illegal foods as i like to call them, but i haven't really had any food, so its been pretty tough, but my wonderful friend james drove me to sherman market in somerville on friday to stock up on some food which was really awesome. also i'm eating a salad for lunch today all with greens ive grown myself! its a rather small salad....

anyway sunday and yesterday i did good with all local food and will keep it up through thursday which is my last day!!! i don't know what i will have cause i have cheated with most of the things ive wanted. perhaps a really lovely glass of wine....

Video Archive

how the plants are looking from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

New Bread from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

lobster adventure from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

what to eat? from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

dinner from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

tortillas from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

root veggies from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

tasting of the roots from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

aero garden from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

Untitled from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

Untitled from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

sprouts! from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

plants update from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

Untitled from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

Untitled from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

Untitled from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

Ice cream update from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

Straining Ice Cream from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

Ice Cream Success!!!!!!!!!!!!!! from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

Untitled from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

Untitled from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

Failed Ice Cream #2 from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

no burgers for us tonight.... from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

GARLIC!!! from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

ice cream attempt #1 from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

Day 3!! from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

my roommate said i could have a cookie if i was willing to eat wet cat food... from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

Untitled from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

day 1!! from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

http://www.slowmoneyalliance.org/

check this out!!

butter mishap

i gashed my hand up pretty bad on tuesday when i was scraping out the butter from the hand held blender, which was off, and some how got turned on. yeah, it really sucked. 17 stitches later.

swollen hand after ladacaine injection

so not only am i having a hard time doing things with my left hand but also making local food. i burned the crap out of the beans i was making for dinner cause my hand hurt so bad i went to lay down and the fire department barged in with their fire axes. i was a hot mess and had nothing to eat. anna saved the day and brought home take out from grasshopper. its hard to type a lot but lets just say its going to get interesting to say the least figuring out how to feed myself on my low supply of local food requiring lots of cooking.....

p.s. video in er to come

Current Realities

So if you saw my last post of what i ate last week, you'll see i started making more exception with the culmination of sunday eating entirely zero local food. What's up with that right? Well I have been feeling the project coming to a close and I've felt like I've gleaned what I need to from this experiment and feel anxious to not be bound my these rules. I look forward to when eating local food is a daily decision rather than a constraints. i am making the decision for the constraint but it doesn't feel like real life, it feels like a project. and so i started being bad here and there and finally yesterday I really indulged. After breakfast I felt like shit (physically felt terrible) pizza was damn good though. Even though I was indulging, the whole time i was eating i felt really conscious of that fact that the bacon and eggs were most definitely coming from factory farmed animals - pigs in close confinement, chickens in cages. I usually have no problem telling people about my project and pushing acceptable social boundaries, but i just felt like going with it. So yeah a lot of the decision was based on wanting to participate in social situations. Social situation have been the number one thing I've felt alienated from during this project. Other people who i have read about that have done this sort of experiment (Barbara Kingsolver, No Impact Man) all have done it with their family. I feel like this would be a lot easier, since the people you eat with on a regular basis are doing the project too, versus me who I'm on my own with two roommates and all my friends not doing it. I feel like as a household decision it would be a lot easier, I'm constantly surrounded my food I can't eat and people eating it. I've learned to live with it, and meditate to zen place :-) its also funny though that people are constantly apologizing to me for eating in front of me, but its like what is that apology really doing? relieving you from feeling guilty, not really thinking about why I am choosing to make the statement of not the food you are. Ever think about why I'm not eating that cheeseburger in your hand? Its been really interesting how such a simple act on me not eating something affect the people around me. All these social protocols attached to food is sort of strange when you become aware of them.....

Anyway. I failed in a big (interesting?) way yesterday in terms of food, but I'm getting back in it today and going to finish out strong for the rest of the project. I thought i have one week left, as i was counting weeks (8 weeks = 2 months = 60 days) but when I counted out the days, April 1st will be day 60 so i have 10 days left (after today). hurray! People have been asking me what my first meal is going to be. It was going to be pizza, but since i've had pizza I think it's going to be a darwin's sandwich with turkey, hummus, apple, avocado, cheese, carrots, sprout, tomatoes, mayo and mustard, with and orange and a LARGE soy latte. yes please. Despite the cheating, there isn' really a lot of food i miss. Citrus and coffee are really the only big ones. I've been able to make a lot of things I want. And the things I can't, I don't really want to be putting so many chemical and high fructose corn syrup in my body.

and this week i gained .5 pounds to bring me to -.5 from my starting weight. honestly not bad if you look at everything I ate (i guess you don't get to see the quantities, but usually when i say ice cream, i mean the whole pint and when i say chocolate i mean one the big fancy chocolate bars) I bet i would lose a lot of weight if i didn't drink too. local beer has a lot of calories ha.

Food Rewind

Tuesday-

Breakfast: toast (homemade) with butter (homemade)

Lunch: Arugula salad (Sheffield, MA - 139 miles)

Dinner: Quesadilla with home made corn tortilla (Corn Meal From Hadley, MA - 101 miles, Wheat flour from Norwich, VT - 139 miles) Turkey from New Haven, VT - 3 miles from Bristol, VT (where i was when i bought it) 219 miles from boston, Cheddar Cheese from Cabot, VT - 70 miles from bristol, vt, 198 from boston

Wednesday-

Breakfast: Toast (homemade) with butter (homemade)

Snack: Apple

Lunch: French Onion (whately, MA - 108 miles) Soup with Cabbage (South Deerfield, MA - 109 miles)

Dinner: Soup again, Chips (Needham, MA - 9 miles) and Salsa (concord, MA - 20.6 miles)

Dessert: Chocolate

Drinks: Narragansett (providence, RI - 49.6 miles) guiness (i only had one and it was st patrick's day)

Late Night: Bravo Pizza (illegal food)

Thursday-

Breakfast: French Toast with homemade bread and eggs from Grand Isle, VT - 44 miles from bristol, 246 from boston

Snack: Arugula Salad with home made dressing (oil, balsamic vinegar, maple syrup)

Snack: Tortilla Chips, Chocolate

Late Lunch: French Onion and Cabbage Soup

Dessert: Gaga Ice Cream from Warwick, RI - 65.8 miles

Drinks: Sam Adams

Late night: chicken tacos (illegal food -these tasted really bad, bland, and i felt like shit after and regreted it)

Friday-

Breakfast: Eggs (Grand Isle, VT - 44 miles from bristol, 246 from boston)

Lunch: Arugula Salad (Sheffield, MA - 139 miles) with smoked gouda (Winchendon, MA - 65.8 miles) and wheat berries (Northfield, MA - 88.9 miles), home made dressing

Snack: Chips (Needham, MA - 9 miles) and Salsa (concord, MA - 20.6 miles)

Snack: Ice Cream from Richardson's in Middleton, MA - 28.1 miles

Dinner: Pasta (somerville- 4.9 miles) Pasta Sauce - (Woonsocket, RI - 42.8 miles) Smoked Gouda (Winchendon, MA - 65.8 miles)

Drinks: Beer from Harpoon (boston, MA - 7.7 miles)

Saturday-

Breakfast: Eggs (Grand Isle, VT - 44 miles from bristol, 246 from boston)

Snack: Chocolate milk (Thatcher Diary in Milton, MA - 15 miles) Chips (Needham, MA - 9 miles) and Salsa (concord, MA - 20.6 miles)

Dinner: LAMB STEAK!!! on the grill (Stillman's Farm in Hardwick, MA - 77.4 miles) and Arugula Salad (Sheffield, MA - 139 miles) with Smoked Gouda (Winchendon, MA - 65.8 miles) and home made dressing

Drinks: Harpoon (boston, MA 7.7 miles)

Sunday- (Disclaimer: I failed in a big way on this day, see accompanying post)

Brunch: Eggs, toast, bacon, belgian waffle with strawberries and whip cream, home fries, mamosa with cranberry juice

Dinner: Cheese pizza, buffalo chicken pizza

Plantz

how the plants are looking from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

Soup!

I made a delicious french onion soup also with purple cabbage. Sounds gross maybe but reallly good. I saw cabbage today and cringed, and bought it. I had never cooked cabbage before. So i sliced it up for my soup and started munching on some raw cabbage. BIG SURPRISE to me. I love cabbage, and had to stop munching before there wasn't any left! I'm constantly amazed at how much i like the food that have always seemed gross to me. I was listening to a thing today that was talking about how we developed the defense mechanism of being disgusted to keep us from eating things that could kill us, but i fail to see how being grossed out by beets and cabbage was designed to keep me from dying when they are actually very tasty. and look really cool. The cabbage gave my soup a great deep purple/red broth.

NYC

So i spent the weekend in nyc for a trip for my art in context class packing in some full days going to different galleries and museums. It was a rainy weekend for sure. What i wasn't counting on was over stimulation of food desires. Even before I got off the bus I was watching all the restaurants and advertisements drive by. I wanted EVERYTHING. It was sort of rough. In the cold rainy weather with everyone else wanting it, I too really wanted coffee. I almost got some on a few occasions, but I held strong. So what did i eat? I ended up compromising a little. I brought some food and went to a farmers market in the terribly wind and rain, and gave in a little too. By the end of the day, I was soaking wet and exhausted so I picked my battles

Friday:

Breakfast - Eggs and Pancakes (ate at home)

Snack- carrots (precut and part of the two giant bags i brought)

Lunch- Turkey sandwiches with home made bread, misty knoll turkey from when i was in vt, Annie's Mustard from vt, goat cheese from mass

Snack- more carrots

Dinner - white pizza (locally made, probably not local ingredients)

Drinks- Blue Point Beer, gin and tonic (the bar ran out of beer glasses so i gave in and had a cocktail, a lame excuse i admit but it was so tasty, I've gotten rather sick of beer)

Saturday:

Breakfast- Apple Maple Smoothie from the farmers market

Grazing throughout the day- bread from farmers market, juice from farmers market

Early Dinner: Garlic Bread, Hot Chocolate, pizza (locally made but probably not local ingredients)

Snack: the turkey from my uneaten turkey sandwhich

Sunday:

Breakfast- Toast (homemade) with strawberry rhubarb jam

Late Brunch: Tomato Eggs, Homefries, bacon, salad, toast

Snack: Carrots

Dinner: Vermont Fresh pasta (from when i was home) tomato sauce, pesto

Dessert: French Vanilla Ice cream (Made in Cambridge)

Today:

Breakfast: Apple, Cheddar, goat cheese omelette

Lunch: Pasta with tomato sauce

Dinner: Pasta with tomato sauce and beef, cheese quesadilla with home made corn tortillas and cabot cheddar (from when i was home)

Dessert: Butterworks yogurt with maple syrup

what to eat? from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

Epic Lobster Adventure with my Mom

lobster adventure from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

My body

So a lot of people have been asking me how its affecting my body. I started on the first day recording my weight weekly to try to see how the food would affect my weight (a REALLY general measure of how healthy i am eating) Here's what's been going on:

Starting weight: 150.5

After Week 1: 151.5 (+1 lbs)

Week 2: 150 (-1.5 lbs)

Week 3: 149.5 (-.5 lbs)

Week 4: 149.5 (0 lbs)

Week 5: 150.5 (+1 lbs)

Week 6 : 149.5 (-1 lbs)

Total Weigh loss: 1lbs

Ok so on initial thought, losing 1 pound isn't very impressive from not eating any processed foods. But lets look at the bigger picture right now. Its the middle of winter. Not a lot of fresh veggies are in season. The winter months are typically a time to eat ones winter stores and conserve energy. The whole meat and potatoes thing, pretty true if you through in some chicken and breads and diary too. So considering I'm eating a diet with pretty high fat, a lot of meat, few greens, and to be honest copious amounts of chocolate, I think I'm doing pretty good. I can't speak for everyone but in the winter we typically pack on the pounds. So if i lose a few pounds or even break even in the winter that sounds pretty good to me considering I eat a lot of chocolate and ice cream, whole milk yogurt, whole milk, a lot of bread, meat. I imagine in the spring and summer months when there are veggies galore will be a time to see more of an impact, but non the less I have dropped a pants size.

But interestingly enough I've been learning more about the nutrition of pastured meat and diary. It makes sense, but never occurred to me that what the animals eat highly determines their own nutrition and thus our nutrition. Cows and chickens naturally eat grass. Grass fed meat has high levels of beta carotene, vitamin e, and folic acid. In general, it has less fat than cows raised on corn feed

and living in a confined area because pastured cows get exercise and don't eat only carbohydrates.

In terms of the fat that grass fed beef does have they have more of the good for us polyunstaturated

fats than the unhealthy saturated fats found in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO's)

Less Saturated fat, and less total fat than grain fed animals.

Grass fed beef and chicken also have higher levels of omega-3's an essential fatty acid found in the

cells of green plants and indispensable to human healthy particularly in the development of

neurons (brain cells).

Another important fatty acid omega-6 found in the seeds of green plants while omega-3 in the

leaves. Studies have shown that it is the balance of these two fatty acids, rather than the actual

amounts that play a critical role. A ratio above 4:1 tends to be problematic in health. An imbalance

in ratio may account for many diseases of civilization such as cardiac, diabetes, obesity,

learning behavior in children, and depression in adults.

Factory and thus corn fed meat has a ratio 10:1 whereas grass fed beef has the

recommended ratio of 3:1

Its a similar story with chickens and eggs. Eggs from chickens that were allowed a rich diet of

grass and insects, fruits and veggies, and little corn have much more omega-3's and thus a healthy

ratio of 1.5 to 1 of fatty acids while a "supermarket egg" has a ratio of over 20:1.

Fish has traditionally been seen as the Mecca of omega 3's but since over half of the US burns coal to generate electricty and 80,000 pounds of mercury is dumped into the oceans every year as a result. Nearly all fish are contaminated with mercury. If you get farm raised fish, they are usually fed corn and then you have the same problems of low omega-3.

Grass-fed beef is loaded with other natural minerals and vitamins, plus it's a great source of CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) a fat that reduces the risk of cancer, obesity, diabetes, and a number of immune disorders.

glorious day in vermont

Most beautiful day ever.

Breakfast: organic yogurt (butterworks diary in Westfield, VT - 85.9 miles) with maple syrup (Bristol, VT - 2 miles), french toast

Lunch: left over pasta with home made pesto, spinach with home made maple citrus dressing, homemade refried beans

snack: monument farms milk (Weybridge, VT - 13 miles)

Dinner: Quesadillas with home made corn tortillas (Corn meal from Winter Moon Farm in Hadley, MA - 101 miles, Whole Wheat Flour from King Arthur Flour in Norwhich, VT - 139 miles, homemade butter), Bread (Red Hen Bread in Middlesex, VT - 35 miles)

I also had some home made chocolate chip cookies. I don't know where the ingredients are from. Since chocolate is my exception i figure they are half ok. they were gluten free. that has nothing to do with local. but they were so good and so worth it i don't regret it at all. but i figured i should tell you.

I'll be meeting some friends for some local brew tonight. Boy have I missed vermont beer. A lot of bars and restaurants around here serve almost all local beers, which is awesome! They restaurant in town (the only one) even exclusive serves their own homebrews. super sweet. My favorite vt beer is switchback made in burlington, they don't even bottle, just sold on tap, but can be found in almost every restaurant and bar in the state. Happy brews :-)

The experience

The whole point really of doing this project has really been to experience local eating. What's it like? How does it affect those around me? What is it like for these beliefs to become more tangible?

This is new kind of thought for me, What does it feel like to eat locally in different places? I haven't been in vermont for 24 hours yet, but I just realized it feel so natural here (no pun intended). If I had to describe how it feels in boston, I would say desperate. Desperate to find food, to resist the temptations. Perhaps it feels more natural here because I can look out the window and I see farm land that grows food instead of apartment buildings and restaurants. Its an interesting thought....the way my choice to eat local feels so different here.

This also has made me do some more thinking about what it would be like to do the project in a rural area. Vermont makes tons of its own food, but being so rural it has much farther to travel to get to the various health food stores. Which also brings up how much driving I would have to do. As far as I know there aren't any winter farmers markets here, and the general public has to drive on average a fair amount to get to local health food stores. So in this regard procuring your food in rural areas becomes much less efficient (unless involved with a csa perharps) than the city. The thing that cities have going for it (like nyc) is a preexistent infrastructure to serve a lot of people in a small area. I'm going to new york in a few days and I'm exciting to check out the local eating scene. Doing a little research new york boast probably close to 50 farmers markets around the metropolitan area, with at least 10 open in the winter. the sheer volume amazed me. With such a concentration of people, it becomes much more efficient to have farmers markets than say in the summer in my town population 2,000 the farmers markets maybe sees 2o-30 people in an afternoon. It becomes ironic that the cities have the potential to more efficiently feed its people than the sprawled out rural areas. US cities right now consume 70% of our resources. US cities could adopt a little more self reliance and take advantages of the spaces that do exist to grow food, like many european countries have done in the threat of food security to produce up to 80% of a cities own food. how spectacular!

Battle of the Diets

So when I met my dad today to grocery shop and eat lunch at our lovely local independent health food store we found ourselves with a little of a situation. My father had decided to return to a past vegan diet about 5 days ago. Great! In reality our diets don't mesh well in the winter. He's not eating meat, diary or wheat. The three things I can pretty much count on to not need a growing season, and that are involved with a lot of my food. Not only did we have to deal with the practicality of choosing food, but conflicting ideas about what was best to eat. This is an interesting point that I started to learn about today listening to Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma while driving to vermont: Our nation's eating disorder. With diets coming and going, what is bad for us continuously becoming good or vice versa, and array of experts, its becomes rather overwhelming and confusing for the consumer to figure out what to eat and where to get it. I feel this is especially hard when trying to figure out the healthiest food for your body and the planet. I think local eating gets at the general picture of how we should be eating: real food that isn't processed and from real people. But I'm also understanding that its also a quite nuanced issue.

In real life, practicality mostly wins. After food shopping we checked out the deli section for lunch. Nothing was entirely local and thus there was nothing I could eat. I wasn't terribly surprised. While the health food store had a decent selection of healthy food, not a terribly not of fresh produce is in season in vermont right now, and us americans, while we want healthy food, we don't want to have to sacrifice our oranges and bananas.

So we sucked it up and went to another place in town that my dad's friend had suggested for some local food. We walked in and explained the situation: 1 vegan, 1 locavore. Turns out, much easier to feed the vegan. While they had a fair amount of options that had local food IN it, not really much entirely local. So i compromised and got soup with local carrots that also had coconut milk in it (my dad said, that's not local? no dad, coconuts don't grow on this continent.....), with local greens, slice of local roast beef, salad dressing, and local bread. I'm hoping eating out locally will get easier as it has for vegans.

I couldn't help but feel like we looked overly self-rightous in that deli. But the great thing is that while it may have been a pain for the girl helping us out, it was totally fine and the chef was happy to talk to us about what was in each meal. At the end of the day, as frustrating as our shopping and lunch was, I felt fortunate that I was discussing local vs vegan with my dad than real food vs mc donalds, and that I have a father that is concerned with his health enough to plunge into an intensely vegan dad. I feel like while "going green" is so popular, sticking to your convictions even when its inconvenient or not cool is not always part of the green attitude. So rock on those who do.

So it's been busy!

I've now made Fresh Mozzarella twice! and shared with friends who (i won't try to be humble) said it was AMAZING. it really tasted real. its exciting. I've been on a quest for goats milk to make goat cheese and I met a woman at a farmers market on sunday who was selling goats milk soap and in a month when her babies are weened will be hooking me up with some goats milk that legally "won't be used for consumption" when i buy it. I've been learning how hard the regulations are for small farmers to be able to sell their milk and thus cheese.

Another interesting twist is I have traveled home last minute for car repairs to Vermont. Let me just say the food terrain is a whole new territory. I met my dad in Burlington at City Market to food shop for dinner and grab a bite to eat. The most exciting find? MUSHROOMS!! So exciting, I've been missing them big time. I heard the guy who grooms them is super awesome and has just big rooms of mushrooms growing. I want to try growing some myself.....and meet him......and have rooms of mushrooms....... I was also happy to get some local 7 grain flour. What else did i notice in a local independent, yet decently sized health food store in Vermont? Much more selection. Vermont makes a ton more food than Mass. I found several locally made tomato sauces, many yogurts and milks, several varieties of tomatoes (but at $5.99 per lb i passed), parsnips, potatoes, tons of beers and wines, and too many cheeses to choose from! I didn't even have time to look at everything. I did however notice where foods were from were not labeled as well as places around boston. they has some local signs, but not all local products were pointed out and the signs were rather plain. I wonder if the local phenomenon is not as obsessive as mass or perhaps the people who shop at the co-op know their product and know whats local already... interesting to think about. City Feed and Sherman Market in the boston area are lovely, but i wish there was a bigger local market that could really compete with the big supermarkets. I would say the two independent health food stores in burlington are the same size if not bigger than the whole foods down the street from my house in brighton. This raises a local issue to vermont is whole food moving into burlington. With two existing decently sized independent health food stores in burlington many are concerned with how much business can the queen city sustain? (no pun intended) People can only eat so much, and there is only so much business to be had in the little city of about 30,000, and thus wholefoods with take away business from the local markets. Most people reading this aren't from around vermont so I won't go on, but if you are interested check out this article: http://www.7dvt.com/2009big-fish

This also brings up a discussion on whole foods in general. I'm starting to learn more about the food system and what would be helpful to remedy it, so I will meditate on it all some more before discussing it. I do know that at this time of year I can buy very little from a store that boasts such abundance.

Local Things I have been able to find at whole foods in the last 5 1/2 weeks:

-milk, eggs, yogurt (once), pasta (once), Tomato Sauce and Pesto (once), apples, cider, flour, tomatoes, fair trade chocolate.

Ok that list doesn't look super meager but really besides the milk and eggs, I'm unable to get the bulk of my food Whole Foods. That question has been popping up a lot when i tell people about my project, "Where do you get your food?" These days I mostly go to a farmers market once a week. This has turned out to far superior to driving all over the city to different specialty stores. I get better prices that go directly to the farmer, who I can directly meet and create a relationship with, better and wider selection of food, and I only need to go to one place which reduces my traveling.

dinner from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

Food

What I ate:

Saturday-

Breakfast/Lunch (I slept in): Toast (home made) with Jam, yogurt with Maple Syrup

Snack: Fresh Mozzarella (while making it!)

Dinner: Fresh Pasta (Somerville, MA), Pasta Sauce, Pesto Sauce, home made mozzarella, cider (Harvard, MA), Kale with Onions

Dessert: Fair Trade Chocolate

Drinks: Shipyard Brown Ale, Harpoon IPA

Sunday-

Breakfast: Pasta with Sauce (I was sick of breakfast foods)

Snack: Kettle Corn (from the farmers market)

Late Afternoon Grazing: Goat Cheese, Homemade Mozzarella (Crescent Ridge Milk Sharon MA - 22 miles and Shaw Dairy in Dracut, MA - 42 miles), Smoked Gouda (Smith's Farmstead Cheese Winchendon, MA - 66.3 miles), more Kettle Corn, left over pasta with sauce

Late evening grazing: Home made Mozzarella, home made tortilla chips, smoked gouda (see above), Fair trade Chocolate, UFO white, Shipyard Brown Ale

Monday -

Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs with refried beans and cilantro

Snack: Leftover Meatball

Snack: Leftover Kettle Corn

Dinner: Salad with green and red lettuce, carrots, goat cheese, pesto, oil, apple vinegar, also sauteed chard with onion.

Dessert: Apple with maple butter

Tuesday-

Breakfast: Apple Pancakes

Snack: Carrots, left over pancakes, beans

**Arrive in Vermont**

Lunch: Local mixed greens with Maple balsamic vingarette, few slices of local roast beef, bread (Red Hen Bakery), Coconut Carrot Soup (with local carrots, had to compromise on the coconut)

Dinner: Local Pasta, home made pesto, sauteed local mushrooms and tomatoes, garlic bread (local bread, home made butter, generic garlic), Wine (Snow Farm Vineyard in Grand Isle, VT - 43 miles)

Dessert: Entirely Organic Mint Ice Cream (Strafford Diary in Strafford, VT - 94 miles

The foods I lusted after today 3/4/10

-Cheeseburger while adam was eating one next to me in class
-Some sort of processes snack when chris asked us on our break if we were going to the store
-Coffee when anna said she was going to starbucks
-Grilled cheese while we were sitting in brueggers while carlie ate hers
- Spaghetti and Tomato Sauce during a lecture in class, also again when I ate plain meatballs for dinner
-An orange while Gabby ate one during class, also again later looking at the peels sitting on her desk
-Indian food while anna talked about going out with justin after class for indian food
-Popcorn while thinking about going to the silhouette which serves free popcorn
-crackers and cookies while in the library where there was food for a reception
-Grapes when the left over food from the reception was put at the front desk that I walked by on my break from class


So all except for one time, I only craved food when I saw other people eating it, talking about it, or saw the food itself. This was not always the case. I used to crave foods all the time. I think I'm becoming more adjusted to my diet for sure. The things i miss the most are fruit and tomato sauce/pasta. I'm living alright without the processed foods. I'm almost done week 5 here and I've been thinking more about what it will be like when my 60 days end. I think I will try to keep eating locally as much as possible but without the complete off limits of everything else. One thing I really feel I will change is local meat. The terrible conditions the animals are kept in basically packed into barns so close they can't move, living in their own excrement, and never seeing sunshine or grass their whole life. Also something interesting is that grass fed animals are actually healthier meat. When they are grass fed, instead of grain fed which has never been natural to their diet, the Cholesterol is actually the kind that is good for you instead of bad. I thought that was wildly interesting, and make a lot of sense if you think about how what we eat affect our health, that it would affect the animals health by what they eat.

I've learned a lot in general from reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbra Kingsolver, which I highly recommend.

Despite all the awesomeness I still get pissed I can eat free food. I used to be the queen of taking advantage of free food: free pizza at school for lunch, wine at openings, snacks at receptions!

Food Update

What I ate:

Thursday-
Breakfast: Toast with jelly
Lunch: 2 small sandwiches with home made bread, home roasted chicken from owen's poultry farm, lettuce from red fire farm, and smoked gouda cheese from smith's farmstead.
Snack: home made apple muffins
Dinner: Home made meatballs
Snack: Ice cream (from Crescent Ridge Dairy, which is where I get my milk. I discovered that it has corn syrup in it, a big no no of local eating! but i ate it anyway because i had already been eating it the last few days and it was so good, and it is gone now so i won't get it again) , cheese, muffin (not all together! just bites)

Today-
Breakfast: Toast with jelly
Lunch: Lunch: 2 small sandwiches with home made bread, home roasted chicken from owen's poultry farm, lettuce from red fire farm, and smoked gouda cheese from smith's farmstead.

Dinner: Kale! with onions, black beans with onions

Drinks: Harpoon Celtic Ale, UFO White

hey so i know i've been really bad about keeping up. here's what I have been eating

friday -

breakfast: eggs, homefries

lunch: beef stew

dinner: lobster, corn bread, and harpoon beer

saturday-

brunch: eggs, homefries, pancakes with maple syrup

snack: apples with maple butter, left over pancakes

dinner: pizza

dessert: chocolate

sunday-

Breakfast: eggs and pancakes

snack: apples with maple butter

Lunch - salad and left over pizza

dinner - I can't remember (thats what i get for slacking on blogging)

monday -

breakfast: toast with jelly

lunch: left over pizza and salad

dinner: roast chicken, bread, salad, pico de gallo with local chips

dessert: home made apple pie with crescent ridge ice cream

tuesday -

breakfast: toast with jam, yogurt with apples and maple syrup

lunch: sandwich with chicken, smoked gouda and lettuce

snack: apple muffins

dinner: left over chicken, ice cream and beer

today-

breakfast: eggs and left over pancakes

lunch: chicken sandwich

snack: apple, apple muffins

dinner: home made meatballs

dessert ice cream (too much!)

tortillas from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

new food

root veggies from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

tasting of the roots from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

herbs and salads home grown?

aero garden from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.