Interesting Idea - Becoming a Locavore

I read an article in The Age Epicure the other day about a man who became a "locavore" for a week.

A "locavore" is someone who only eats food grown/manufactured/bought within 160kms (100 miles) of their home. As he was in Melbourne, he could only buy and eat things grown, manufactured AND bought within that radius. Apparently it's also becoming more common because of greenhouse emissions - if you eat locally grown food, there are less eco-miles involved with transporting it etc. Interesting idea.

Apparently the most difficult thing, for Melbournites, is that there isn't any wheat grown within 160 kms of Melbourne. Nor is there any sugar. So substitutes have to be found - honey for sugar, some other type of grain for wheat. He had to spend a lot of time (on his bicycle) scouring the farmer's markets, local butchers, and going to the beekeeper's house.

What do you think of this idea? I think it might be good to try, but living in a house with my parents, I don't often get to choose the food purchases. But if I was on my own, I think I might try it.

I think it's a great idea! Would be hard to be "hard-core" with it.. like with the wheat thing etc.. but I reckon where you can get stuff locally.. go for it :)

I've been kinda swerving toward this ever since reading a book called "French Women Don't Get Fat". It mentions over and over again how the French have a prefernece for local produce as much as possible.... and they tend to buy things daily rather than weekly or fortnightly like we do. Being a SAHM certainly makes this easier. But back to the locavore concept: I'd definately like to keep up with what other Melbournians discover in regard to local products. Especially after the Nestle boycott (Formula tread) I've been wanting to change a few brands anyhow. Keep the ideas coming! Maybe regarding wheat, bread etc, we could check out Phillipa's which is made in Melbourne... not sure where they source their wheat from.

This sounds great!! I don't think I could do it 100%, but the concept is fantastic & something I'd really like to be more consious of.

My parents have a HUGE vege patch. There is always something in season & I love eating home grown goods. And I love that Emma can go out & pick & eat her own food - she loves it too! :D

I heard of this concept before, where some people had stopped being vegetarian due to the damage to the enviroment that bringing in their specialist vegetarian foods did.

Good idea really, help the environment and support local producers at the same time.

Well I'm going to try the Collingwood market this weekend. Apparently most of their foods are grown locally. I'm also going to chat with my butcher, just to see what is going on.

Although I think I'm going to catch a bus or ride my bike to the market. Not a lot of point driving if I'm trying to make a difference to the environment!

I've been thinking alot about the same thing lately....
I've been trying to increase the amount of local produce we eat although I'm not going so hardcore with it. I couldn't live without my coffee but now I'm ordering the Jasper's Free Trade online instead of buying the Lavazza at the shops.
I'm also starting to try and grow some of my own food and keep chooks.
The benefits aren't just environmental. I think that it's much healthier to eat fresh local foods in season than imported foods and there are also taste benefits. DH bought some of the US cherries that are in the shops at the moment and they were so hard and bland compared to the Australian ones.
I remember as a child that it would always be exciting when certain fruits came into season but now you can buy them all year round. I want my children to know some of that excitement and also to have the understanding of the seasons that comes with eating seasonal produce.

Exactly Chloe: because we have everything all the time there is often nothing "special" about the seasons anymore... I think that's really sad. I think many people would struggle to know what are summer and winter fruits and vegies now too... I'm sure our bodies are geared toward eating certain foods at certain times of the year too... everything in nature is for a reason I think.

I am home and hosed on this one if we chose to do it LOL! Within 160km of me there is a flour mill (and we sell them wheat we've grown), we are in the Riverina, which is the food bowl of the state. I love shopping at coles over at Griffith because they tell you what is sourced locally, so you can buy that instead of stuff from out of town, plus the butchers get their livestock local, and Wagga has a farmers market once a month. The only problem I would see would be the sugar, but then there are plenty of locally based apiarists for honey.

it is a fascinating concept and I think you'd be pleasantly surprised at what you can find if you look for it.

Sounds fantastic Sherie.... and not just food either... I'd love to buy everything local if i could... and with peak oil apon us it might not be long before we all have no choice but to anyhow.

Wow Sherie I'm jealous. Sounds like a plan.

Divvy, I think the collingwood market at the childrens farm is in 2 weekends time. It's usually the 2nd Saturday of the month. Unless there is another market in collingwood.
THe follwing fortnight is the slow food market at the convent.

There is more meat and condiment type stuff at the slow food market and the childrens' farm has a bit more fruit and vege... well it seems that way anyway.

we're die hard growers market goers... recently we went away and missed the market and had to wait 2 weeks til the next one.... I was completely lost. I just can't buy fruit and vege from the supermarket any more... it's just so gross.

I think we're pretty much locovores.. except for wheat... but I do make all our bread at home.... just not with local wheat.

Well I think it probably depends on where you live as to how successful it would be! For example in the cold Canberra winter, I'm not sure there would be too much fresh fruit around or available, whereas in Darwin you'd have lovely dry season veggies and then a horrendously limited diet in the wet season. Whereas Adelaide would be a really easy place to do this!

That's a good point Marydean. But I suppose before modern transport and supermarkets etc, people just had to get by on what they could produce and store themselves, living on salted meats and preserved/dried fruit and veg.

I think I'm going to try the Collingwood markets, and will try to go by bicycle. At elast I'll get some exercise if nothing else! It's about 8kms from my house, but that horrible Studley Park Road hill is in the way... it'll be all right on the way there, but I think getting home is going to be interesting!

Maybe we should move to Adelaide... their weather is nicer...

But I did love Shepparton for its wonderful fruit and vegies, most of the year you can buy them from the side of the road, which is just awesome. Also some of the old ladies up there did a regular "jam/preserve" stall in the mall, which was great too. I still remember their strawberry jam. Delish!

I'd love to make bread at home, but it seems to disappear straight out of the breadmaker... the joys of living with your parents! Dad LOVES bread, especially warm.

Saying that, I went to the Vic markets yesterday and picked up a whole heap of lovely vegies, and had a stir fry last night. Noice. And very very tasty.

Keep up the ideas, if there's anywhere else in Melbourne (within a reasonable distance) that does nice local food, I'd love to hear about it.

CERES at East Brunswick has an organic market Wed and Sat mornings. The cafe there is quite nice and does cater quite well to vegetarians as well as meat eaters.

grower's market is on at the collingwood children's farm this weekend!! Who will I see there :)

OOh we've been to them before (the Collingwood CF one), it's wonderful and the quality of the produce is always really high! :) DH just said "yep!"

Ceres is GREAT!

*bumpy bump bump*

So... we just went and bought a new fridge and found one made in Orange. Its not that close but we figured Australia ;) we paid a little more, but I think its worth it in the end, not only to buy locally grown produce (DH & I have just put a radius on our fruit & vegs and most of our shopping...) its taken time to figure out and time to work out things like toilet paper and what we want to buy and what I will allow (I really like soft paper!!)

We searched choice before buying our large appliances and then checked the appliances that were made in Australia. We generally buy food at the markets and I've just found a farmer who has a stall down the road on Sundays who comes from 50kms away. He even grows his own garlic so we are in good!!

Well done Christy! At first i thought you meant your fridge was in orange as in the colour and i thought "ooh how groovy!" must be a Smeg... LOL What brand is it? We might have to buy a new one soon. Which reminds me: we will never never be a jumbo sized fridge family. Even though we have 3 kids who will eventually be teens i just don't want to be the kind of family who buys so much food at once. So much seems to get 'lost' in those big fridges... my sis has one. There is always stuff that has been forgotten... it's false economy. Plus you have to pay for the power to run the thing. I'll stick to the European way of buying fresh every day or 2. I might consider owning a small second fridge that is only used at xmas etc.

Well done, Christy. Great research. Would you mind sharing what company you bought it from? I'd be interested - I will be setting up my own house in the next year or so so would be delighted to hear where you got it from.

children's farm growers market are on tomorrow!!

hope the weather is good! i've been looking forward to it all week!!

I hope the weather is better than last time too! It was sooo soggy we just left :( Visited the Convent cafe instead though (next door) it was wonderful!

ooohhh I can get there about 11 - anyone want to meetup?

markets weren't on last weekend :( but we still had fun at the childrens farm. THis weekend it's the slow food market at the convent. I'm going to double check though...

I was so upset that I'd got the dates mixed up.... now the fridge is empty and i'll have to go to the vic markets tomorrow just to get a few things to get us through to the weekend.

bummer.

Sorry girls!! I totally lost this thread. My fridge is an electrolux, but the fisher & pykel are made in QLD even closer... just too much $$ for us so we had to move further away in Australia ;)
The funny thing was DH & I were debating about location etc etc... and the salesperson said its the first time they had seen anyone debating where the fridge was made vs cost.

Bath I'm like you, I would totally rather get my food every few days fresh, the only thing is the markets around us are only on Sundays... otherwise its Coles or Woollies and I'd rather markets once a week.... that is until my garden is going.

I'm just wondering what path you guys follow with things like rice that are genarally unsuitable for Australian conditions.
Is it better to eat something that is grown locally if growing locally isn't really sustainable or to get the imported product? I know that probably one could just stop eating it but realistically I'm not going to give up rice....