Locavores


Local diner
You can keep your global economy. Locavore Jessica Prentice says eating locally makes a lot more sense.
By Karen Solomon
95
Percentage of local foods that Prentice consumed last year during the challenge. What made her cheat: soy sauce, arrowroot, vanilla extract, cocoa, the occasional restaurant meal, and anything fed to her out of hospitality.
75
Percentage of local foods Prentice eats the other 11 months of the year.
1
Satisfying item created just for 100-milers. Eduardo Morell, a vendor at the Ecology Center Saturday farmers' market in Berkeley, created a bread made from Full Belly Farm wheat, Sonoma salt, and tap water.? It sold out every weekend during last year's locavore
event.
0
Number of local coffee growers. If you accept the locavore challenge, no wake-up shot of espresso for you.

"There's no reason to ship in apples from New Zealand when we grow them in Sebastopol. That's just crazy," says Jessica Prentice, co-founder of the "locavores." Throughout May, Prentice and her cohorts challenge us to eat food grown within 100 miles of home. After all, when you buy locally, you not only get fresher produce, you hop off the fossil-fuel juggernaut. Transporting your eats doesn't have to burn up scads of gas and oil, and our small farmers typically produce food using less heavy machinery and chemicals than large-scale operations do.

Despite her passion about the topic, "I don't expect people to eat 100 percent locally all the time," says the high-energy Prentice, who's been a food activist since she went to culinary school. For us, that would mean giving up bananas forever, since none grow in the Bay. But the 100-mile challenge reminds us just how well we can eat right here. The trick is thinking seasonally: "Everyone loves stone fruit and tomatoes," says Prentice of last year's August event. "This year, we're upping the ante by trying a spring month. Next year, who knows—maybe January?"