Food - Sustainable Eating

What is Sustainable Eating?

Where does your food come from?  Who grew it?  Were they paid a decent wage?  Were the animals treated humanely? Were the workers who grew your food exposed to pesticides?  Was your food grown in healthy soil?  How far has your food traveled to reach your dinner plate?  Does your food contain any chemicals harmful to you or your family?

Sustainable eating means knowing about your food.  Here are some tips for eating sustainable food in Stockton:

• Buy from local sources when possible (less oil spent in transporting food AND you will know the farmer/grower)
• Buy organic food when possible (no pesticides or petroleum based fertilizers used in growing the food)
• Look for meat that is produced in the least harmful way – grass fed, organic, antibiotic and hormone free.
• Grow or raise some of your own food. (If you are new to vegetable gardening, check out the garden mentor program at the Farmshed link below)
• Look for the Fair Trade and/or label when buying food from the tropics (chocolate, coffee, tea) – Fair Trade this means the workers were paid fair wages and not exposed to dangerous chemicals

Is locally grown food always best?
Not always.  But it doesn’t take as much fossil fuels to reach your dinner plate and you can often meet the farmer and know a lot more about the food.

How far away is “local” anyway?
Some people look for food within 100 miles of their home, some try for Wisconsin grown food.  It’s up to you. The closer the better.

Where to find Sustainable Food in Central Wisconsin:

The good news is that we have some local sources of food right in Stockton: a pick your own blueberry farm, a Community Supported Agriculture Farm, and lots of road side stands…. 
Check out the Find it in Stockton Directory.

Other sources for local foods include:

Central Wisconsin Farm Fresh Atlas – in pamphlet form; available at many public places like the library, the Farmers Market in Stevens Point, our Town Hall.  New atlas coming out in fall 2008.

http://www.localharvest.org/ - a great national web site that will hook you up with farmers, CSAs, farmers markets, etc.  in your area

For more information on local foods visit http://www.farmshed.org/ Farmshed is a newly formed group of people in Central Wisconsin who are trying to develop a local food economy.  They sponsor many events through out the year.

Good Reads About Food:

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver 2007

The Omnivore’s Dilemma A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan 2006