End of Pennywise Local Food Challenge
May 1st, 2007I meant to post on this sooner since we “officially” ended the challenge on Sunday night.
Our total costs came to $117– five bucks below our challenge of $121! But we went over on alcohol, spending about $18.00 for the week. (OK, so we didn’t even try to stay on budget in terms of alcohol, and the bottle and a half of wine we consumed was not local. . . )
As vegetarians, protein was an issue since we did not find any tofu, tempeh, or legume/bean options that are from local sources. Not saying they don’t exist we just weren’t in the know.) So, we ended up eating a lot of local dairy products!
But, we weren’t purists either: I did use sugar in my baking on Saturday and Sunday and we used salad dressings that weren’t produced locally (and yes, we made our own as well, which we often do).
Other misses that are staples to some extent: Bananas, fruits, juices, rice, and yoghurt. But, Tom made yoghurt for us for the first time on Sunday!
Overall, I realized that it isn’t that hard to do and actually would have to say that I think we already buy pretty local (maybe 60 % or more of our foodstuffs), but we can do more.In any case, I’m pledging to go to the farmers’s market at least once if not twice a week this summer since that’s the best place to get local produce (was disappointed by the local choices at our food co-op).