During our vacation in Sayulita (photos here), I read a book called “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver. It was – and this might sound dramatic – revolutionary. It opened my eyes to just how much of a footprint our eating habits have stretched. We haven’t bought avocados or bananas or anything citrus to keep at home that wasn’t produced in the USA since we’ve been back. Which also means we haven’t bought avocados or bananas – they always come from at least Mexico, which is far outside our new goal: buy food that was produced within 500 miles from Seattle. Others that we’ve bought sparingly include tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini… we’ve been thrown into a crash-course in what it means to cook with winter produce like kale, collard greens, parsnips, carrots, potatoes and other root vegetables. It’s actually been quite tasty!
Yes we still buy olive oil and other things that we justify using. We decided to ween ourselves off the 500+mile range items slowly.
Though bread can be found here in Seattle and all over, having a bread maker was woven into this book I read. It’s not going to reduce our footprint by much – I can’t say for sure where my flour comes from, but it will cut down on food costs. We spend probably $40/mo on bread, between sandwich loaves and pizza crusts, hamburger buns and muffins, it all adds up.
Making bread is incredibly easy. And I don’t think our family & friends will complain when gifted with a fresh, tasty loaf.
