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!