What is Local?

Helping with the Dome Greenhouse at UNBC

This first week of our local challenge has been amazing. We have received so much love and support from our friends and the local community that we know this year will be our best year ever. Angela and I are both full time students at UNBC so our first week on the project also coincided with our first week back at school. This meant for some interesting choices like can we eat at the campus pub or from the free bbq? A lot of conversation has been happening about what is defined as local and what we in turn interpret that as for the scope of our project so here is where we are at so far.

Local means produced or prepared in BC. This means we can eat local produce, locally prepared goods, and locally made wares. That includes food grown in BC, personally I am only eating local organic cheese but staying true to my vegetarian roots, as this is difficult to locate in the north it means less dairy for me on a whole. Locally made jewellery, clothing and goods are up for grabs too, so everything at farmers market's feels like open season for us. Prepared foods has been the iffy category for us but we feel like if we are purchasing prepared foods made by local business's we are in turn supporting our local economy. If we ask where they source their food they may not be consistent with our personal goals, so does this mean by supporting local industry that support unsustainable food purchases, are we losing the plot?

Used, salvaged and recovered- This also means we can purchase anything second hand as we were not a part of the original buying power and the initial spend that went towards the producers. (I am still looking for a used Mat & Nat backpack if anyone see's one!) We can eat food that is free, leftovers and expired food needs to be saved from hitting the land fills. We can also recover food, dumpster diving and leftovers from conferences are so on our radar. We are still going through our cupboards for the next few months, eating what was purchased in the months (and sometimes years) before our switch to local, my favourite being the can of expired pears I've had in there for...awhile that I am saving for the winter months when I miss fruit.

Waste reduction- We will be attempting to reduce our waste throughout this process by eliminating as much plastic and wrapping as possible from our 'life diet'. You can do this easily yourselves by saying no to plastic cutlery and straws, bringing your own reusable bags and eating in instead of take out. When you shop more locally you actually end up using less packaging by default as local stores and business's often make there own containers and tend towards reusable containers.

Fresh Peaches

It has been a busy week but we feel we are off to a great start. We just got a 20lb case of peaches from our favourite local grocers Home Sweet Home and are cutting up and freezing them to enjoy throughout the winter. I am still cultivating from my wee backyard garden and look forward to enjoying some of my hard earned veggies very soon. Today I am going berry picking, I don't know if I will find anything at this point in the season but it is worth a try!

Happy hunting,

Melanie