I\'m Summer, a mouthy, sarcastic bitch. I\'m passionate about natural birth, long term breastfeeding, and living naturally. I curse too much, love tattoos, and will some day be crushed to death by my book collection. I homeschool, dream of gardening, and swing to the left. 
Choose Your Food – No Impact Week Day 4
It’s Wednesday, and today’s challenge is to look at your food. Good thing too, because we just ran out of milk this morning. Since the boys cannot exist without milk, we’ve got a shopping trip to do.
Today everyone is encouraged to lower their food impact, things like choose locally grown foods. It’s actually going to be hard right now, this time of year and the cold means there really aren’t many things still growing. I know I can get some local honey, and milk. We have been buying Braum’s milk for a couple years now. It’s local and tastes much, much better.
We really need to join the Oklahoma Food Coop, like I’ve been bugging Michael for a year about. Clearly my nagging needs to happen with a sharp stick. I also want to start canning. I’ve posted on Freecycle looking for some supplies, and next weekend I’m going to go see if my grandmother still has her old canning jars and lids.
- Take your food list from yesterday and calculate your carbon “foodprint.” Did you eat anything grown within 250 miles? Click here to find out what’s in season locally. Chose five items from yesterday that were not produced locally and try swapping them out for items that are produced locally.
- For this week define your own limits. Will you only buy food grown within 100 miles of your home, or food only grown in the U.S.? Will you give up beef or try veganism? Since you aren’t consuming packaged products (which create trash), your choices may be easier than you think.
OK, so who else is doing this? What are you doing today?
We have a front yard veggie garden that keeps us in greens for most of the year. Things like kale, chard and dandelions stay around until the snow appears but they do well in chilly weather.
There’s also something called urban foraging. There are many edible weeds and if you know where to look, it can cut down on your food costs.