You Eat Local? Prove It!

So…you’ve chatted up with your friends about how Buy Local savvy you are. You connect with your local farmer while stuffing this week’s CSA into a plastic-water-bottle-recycled bag. Last week, you bought the season's first (and most delicious) New York apples at the corner farmstand. Yesterday, you finally cooked, in bulk, those four fatty zucchinis bursting out of the refrigerator’s bottom drawer. Made with love, you transformed those zukes with the help of organic side-kicks into delectable mini-breads that your friends can't turn down. You’ve shared your buy local experience in all these ways, with said friends: in your conversations, your actions and your eating. You’ve got the Buy Local Bug…bad… and aren’t afraid to share it.


You are a Locavore.


All the more reason for you to officially take the NY Locavore Challenge sponsored by NOFA-NY (Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York). We at the Watershed Agricultural Council encourage you to put your local food where your mouth is...literally AND figuratively…by taking take the online pledge. The Challenge runs the lines of "I hereby promise to eat local and support a vibrant food system in the following ways..." Yes, it's a do-it-yourself endeavor and you don't have to commit beyond your comfort zone.

Register online and sign up for what you're willing to take on: cook, forage, garden, take action, write a congressional rep. Add your name to The Challenge, officially and publicly, to further the Buy Local/Eat Local movement. You can then proudly turn to your friends, proclaim your "locavoreness" and challenge them to take the Challenge with you. But you have to do it now as the NY Locavore Challenge runs through September 30.

What are we doing at the Watershed Agricultural Council to proclaim our locavoreness? We work with farmers five days a week. We co-hosted a showing of What's On Your Plate? just last week. And we co-sponsored a Farmer Flood Relief fundraiser to benefit Catskills farmers in need: $10,000 and counting in just two weeks!

As for me personally, I registered for the Challenge last week, baked the zuke breads, wrote this blog and am heading home to figure out how to make collard greens. Foraging? Not yet for this locavore, but maybe in 2012. What do you plan to do as part of the 2012 NY Locavore Challenge?