ecoyear

Planning for our conversion to local food begins in earnest January 1st. So what can you eat in Colorado and other snowy parts in winter?

Here's some informative websites:
1. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has listed local foods by state and season in its food miles section. In a recent article, it details the ecological impact of the billions of pounds of food that California, of all places, imports during the year. One measure of the price we pay is in excess disease, including asthma, and school absences attributable to poor air quality. The greatest single impact in California is from imported grapes (?!). Check out their pdf flie.

2. Eat the seasons gives a list of available foods per state per week - with recipes!!

3, There is a cool website listing the origins of ingredients in specific brands. Apparently the authors are in Michigan, but that is a start. I found out that the closest source of rice is in Sacramento, CA, sold by Lundberg rice. While 1174 miles is hardly within my local area, it might still be preferable than buying rice shipped from Thailand, especially since Lundberg adopts several sustainable farming practices.

4. You can get a sense of staples grown in your region from the US Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service. See my staple foods section for details.

Closer to home and off the web, I found a source of locally milled Colorado grown organic whole wheat: Rocky Mountain Milling. I called them excitedly figuring they could tell me who used their flour to bake bread for sale locally...no luck. I felt that I was trying to obtain a closely guarded strategic secret. They gave me the names of two distributors. I could buy 50 lbs bags of flour if I so desired. One of the distributors mentioned Breadworks in Boulder. But no, Breadworks buys from a mill on the East Coast...I haven't heard back from Udi's. Rudi's Organic Bakery source whole wheat from the US and a little from Canada - price dependent. The closest bread baked from "locally" grown wheat might be Great Harvest Bread Co. - they get flour from the "high arid plains of Montana", about 500 miles from here, I figure.

Then there is Coastalfields, 80 some miles from me in Boulder. They are a CSA and they grow and sell wheat we can grind into flour ourselves. An interesting experiment, and maybe I won't have to buy 50 lbs just to experiment with bread baking...

Oh to answer my title question:
"Fresh food" available in Colorado right now includes pinto beans, popcorn, potatoes, and apples and onions from storage. I think I can also dig up parsnips. Also, I think there are ways to store carrots, and there are greens and kale that might be available from some of the CSAs, if I had bought a winter share before they sold out. Then there is cheese, meat and chicken, and the winter squash still edible on my kitchen counter. The local CSAs have no eggs to sell (maybe to their winter share recipients, but not otherwise.

My next mission will be to develop a year's worth of weekly family menus, taking into account basic nutrition and my picky children. Then I can plan what to plant, get through CSA and buy at farmers' market next summer so I have enough to freeze and can for next "lean season". Produce becomes plentiful June through October - that is less than half the year available to plan for the other 7 months. But then, as Barbara Kingsolver points out in "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle", I will essentially have made dinner ahead for the rest of the year...

Better air quality and more antioxidants sound like enough reasons for this family physician.