Photo Courtesy of Stock Exchange (www.sxc.hu)

I’ve has several people ask me when I’ll be adding their county to Eat Local TN.  For right now, my answer is:  I’m not.  I’m not trying to exclude anyone, it’s just that I started the site to serve a need in my own rural community, and It’s taking all my spare time (and them some) to build the site as a resource for my neighbors here.

Perhaps once I’ve built the site up more, (six months to a year  from now or so?)  I will begin to branch out into surrounding areas.  For right now, I want to keep the site relatively small, so that I can concentrate on providing accurate information.

If you live in a different county and are interested in eating locally, please check my resources page, or my Start Here Post, as many of the sites I list there are statewide resources that can help you get started.

Please do keep checking back in the future, as I will eventually add more, but for now, thanks for understanding that I’m a busy homeschooling mom, trying to make a difference for my family.  Thanks.

The longer I do this local eating thing, the more questions I’m getting. There seems to be a sense that if 100 % of my diet isn’t local than I’m cheating, a failure, or worse, just a nut for trying it at all. Well, we committed to the 100-mile challenge in January, not to make a political statement, or wage a battle against commercial agriculture, but for our own, personal benefit. I know, that cynical voice in your head is wondering, “then why blog about it, if it’s not for attention?” Well, I have that little voice too, and it tells me I’m crazy to let people see this far into my personal life all the time. After all, I’m a private person by nature. When we started, we were finding it so hard to find groceries from right here, that we figured others might benefit from all this work I’m doing for us, hence this blog.

As for the percentage of food we eat that is local? I’m not keeping track. All I can say is that we’re trying to eat as locally as possible, all the time. Do I still go out? We eat out far too much, actually. But the more we eat homegrown food, the less I want to eat out, because commercially prepared food agrees with my stomach less and less.

Our kids still want to “be normal,” and crave the junk food their friends eat.  Snacks full of corn syrup, salt, artificial colors and flavors, and way too many corn and soy by-products. And that’s ok for now. I just buy it as a once in awhile treat, not all the time staples. Dessert now is fruit or yogurt, and fewer sweets. When they do eat baked goods, I try to take the time to make them from scratch, so I at least know what’s in them.

I look at the whole process of buying groceries differently now. I picture it as a pattern of concentric circles, with our farm at the center and our local Kroger on the outside. I try to get as much of it as possible from the center, and smaller circles, and move outward as I go. Take this week for example: At home we have eggs, grass fed meats in the freezer, a few remaining frozen fruits and veggies from last year, local honey, jams and wheat, and dried beans & grains. To this I will add cheese made in Alabama, and veggies from the locally owned small market in town. I’ll use organic milk from Kroger for drinking, and making yogurt, and bake some bread. These are the other things I will buy, preferably organic: breakfast cereal, canned tomatoes, pasta sauce, dry pasta, spices, chocolate chips, and nuts. I try to purchase produce from surrounding Southern states, and at the very least things produced in the US. I confess, I’m back to buying bananas, which I had phased out for awhile, but I will pay extra for organic when available, since they aren’t sprayed with all those chemicals before shipping.

I’d say it’s all about moderation, but some of you would point out there was nothing moderate about my drive for Hatcher Family Dairy Milk. However, I wouldn’t do that every day. Consider it research. I don’t want to talk about things here without having at least tried them myself. So I made the trip. Once I check out the store in Lewisburg that sells it, I will probably see what else I can get there and make a trip once a month to get everything I can while I’m there.

Eating locally, for me, is more about changing that consumer mindset, back to something more sustainable. The more we shop local, the more demand for local products we create. The more demand there is, the more local producers will provide a local product, and the easier it will become to shop locally for a larger percentage of our food. We are just trying to do our part in making that happen.  For us, there is no all or nothing, just the effort of trying to do the best we can right now.

So.  You’re new to this whole idea of eating locally.  Maybe you’ve seen something on TV, read a book, or a newspaper article, or saw it somewhere online.  But you want to know HOW to do it HERE.  OK.

This is where you”ll find some good information and links to some of the big websites that can get you started.

The 100-mile Challenge : Home to the authors of the book that started it all, and the challenge that sprouted a TV show on PLGN.

Pick Tennessee Products : A state sponsored website that allows you to search for products and producers state-wide.

Pick Your Own : Where you can find a pick-your-own farm near you.

TN Farm Fresh : State sponsored site helping to connect consumers with farmers in their area.

Local Harvest: Searchable database for finding local food nationwide.

Food Security Partners: Working hard to create a sustainable food system in Middle TN.

Sustainable Table: Where to go to learn more about sustainable food.

Eat Well Guide: Searchable guide for finding local, sustainable, organic food.

Good luck, and good eating!

At the beginning of January I signed my family of five up for the 100-mile challenge online.  For the next year we would eat as locally as possible, without being ridiculous about it.  No gimmicks, but an honest attempt to make changes that would lead us closer to home for our food production.  We already had quite a stockpile of foods we had preserved last summer, as well as eggs & meat from our own chickens, and beef we bought from a friend.  It didn’t seem like it would be too hard of a challenge for us. I just wanted to pursue the idea more consciously.  Really, as our 100-mile radius leads us as far North as the KY border, and south to Birmingham, AL we’re sitting quite well as far as living in an area of great potential.

Then, after only two weeks, the reality of what we were trying to do began to sink in.  As Al and I discussed at length the pros and cons of having to DRIVE 100 miles to obtain our food on a regular basis, we began to wonder where to draw the line.  At what point was the gas we were burning detracting enough from the overall benefits of local eating we were supposed to be reaping, as to make it pointless?  So I began narrowing the scope of the project.  The more I looked, the more I found myself wishing I lived in Franklin, or East Nashville.  I found more CSA’s, Farmer’s Markets, and food co-ops up there than I care to mention.  How could that be?

Here we are living in the center of a six county region that is ripe with farms and fertile valleys full of all varieties of animals & vegetables.  However, most of these, it seems, are sent into the city to market.  How could it be that people in the suburbs of Nashville were eating fresh, organic local produce from middle TN farms, while the very neighbors of these farmers were making do with tasteless tomatoes trucked in from CA by Wal-Mart?  I became sure that there must be ways to eat truly locally all year, right here where we are.

I decided to redefine my geographical definition of Local.  I think 100 miles is too far.  Many of the challenges online, or on television were designed around mid-sized towns or large cities.  Not only do we live on the outskirts of a one-stoplight town, we are surrounded on every side by counties full of nothing but more one-stoplight towns.  Looking at a map of the state, I had to decide how far I was really willing to go on a regular basis.  I am, after all a home-schooling mom to three girls, my husband works hard at 2 ½ jobs all week long, we have a small farm ourselves, and I simply don’t have time to run all over the countryside in search of good, local food.

I decided to focus on the surrounding counties not served by the greater Nashville Metro Area.  A triangular area bordered on the west by I-65, on the east by I-24, to the north by I-840, and the southern boundary is the AL state line. Roughly we’re talking about the counties of Marshall, Bedford, Coffee, Lincoln, Moore, and Franklin, with a sliver of Williamson and Rutherford thrown in up there at the top.

map courtesy of Google maps...

There must be others out here like me, looking to support our local farmers.  What we need is one place where we can go to online to see what is available.  What I hope to build here is a clearinghouse of information to help strengthen our rural communities right here in Southern Middle TN.  If you know of a market selling local jam, cheese, bacon, or honey, a CSA delivering locally, or a farmer with a kickin’ roadside stand, please feel free to drop me a line, and I’d love to include them.  Please come back to visit often, to see where we’ve been, where we’re headed next, and what we find along the way.