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To stir people into action on peak oil issues in the Capital District
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The 100 Mile Diet Challenge
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Market Report 5/4/08 The Troy Farmers Market has moved outdoors and is down by the river (Hedley Park Place, River St.). Spring is here! New this week is rhubarb, along with leeks, scallions, radishes, kale, mustard greens, turnip greens, chard, bok choi and salad greens. There are still potatoes, carrots, beets and onions. Apples, pears and cider can be found at the Troy market year-round. Several farmers use techniques to extend the growing season, such as row covers, high tunnels and greenhouses, so you can find salad greens, cooking greens and tomatoes at almost any time of the year. The meat vendors, selling beef, pork, lamb, chicken and eggs, are still there, along with the vendors selling mushrooms, baked goods, cheese, wine, chutneys, peanut butter, maple syrup, garlic spreads and more. |
Local Food Sources
Troy farmers market (433 River St., Sat. 9AM-1PM): lots of vegetables, fruit, meat, eggs, milk, cheese, bread, maple syrup, etc.
Saratoga farmers market (High Rock Park, Wed 3-6PM, Sat 9AM-1PM): I haven't been to this market but I'm told it's very good, and like the Troy market, it operates year-round
Schenectady farmers markets (1241 State St., Tues 10AM-3PM; Franklin & Jay, Thurs 9AM-2PM; Union & Woodlawn, Sat. 9AM-1PM): vegetables, etc. in the summer and fall
Albany farmers markets- quite a few; for a list, see www.agmkt.state.ny.us/AP/CommunityFarmersMarkets.asp
Menands Farmers Market (Market Rd., Sat. 9AM-1PM, for directions, see http://www.capitaldistrictfarmersmarket.com/members.htm): originally started as a wholesale produce market; now open to the public on Sat.
Cambridge Farmers Market (East Main and Washington, Sun 10AM-2PM); vegetables, etc. June-Oct.
Glens Falls Farmers Markets (Elks on Cronin Rd., Mon. 3-6PM; Civic Center, Tues. 11Am-2PM; South St. Pavilion, Sat. 8-12, May-Nov.): vegetables, etc.
The Alleged Farm CSA (http://theallegedfarm.com/, Ph: 692-9065): vegetables, fruit; number of delivery sites
Denison Farms CSA (Saratoga farmers market is a drop-off site)
Kilpatrick Family Farms CSA (Saratoga farmers market is a drop-off site)
Honest Weight Food Coop (484 Central Ave., Albany, NY, Ph: 482-2667): They carry a number of local foods and have a master list at the service desk
Niskayuna Co-op (2227 Nott St., Niskayuna, NY, Ph: 374-1362): some local foods, especially produce
Village Store Coop (25 East Main, Cambridge, NY): some local foods
BetterBee (http://www.betterbee.com/, 8 Meader Rd., Greenwich, NY, Ph: 800-632-3379): honey
Raw milk sources: http://www.realmilk.com/where4.html
Birkett Mills (P.O. Box 440, Penn Yan, NY, Ph: 315-536-3311): I know, the Finger Lakes are >100 miles from here (195 to be exact) but they sell buckwheat and whole wheat flour! They ship by UPS
Predel's Ranch (59 Garnsey Rd, Rexford, NY, Ph: 399-0265: meat, eggs, honey, jam
Nagimor Farm (165 Hite Rd., Warnerville, NY, Ph: 254-0021): beef, chicken, pork, lamb (bulk or individual cuts), eggs
(There are quite a few farms in the area that raise grass-fed/free-range animals- please let us know about your favorite)
Winchell Creek Stock Farm (676 E. Starbuck Rd., Fort Ann, NY; George Gramlich): Beefalo
Indian Ladder Farms (342 Altamont Rd., Altamont, NY, Ph: 765-2956): lots of fruit, vegetables, jams, honey, milk, cheese, eggs; local foods indicated by signs!
Beekman St. Bistro (Saratoga Springs, NY): according to Regional Farm & Food Project's website, this restaurant serves a number of local foods
Mouzon House Restaurant (1 York St., Saratoga Springs, NY): serves a number of local foods
One Caroline St. Bistro (1 Caroline St., Saratoga Springs, NY): serves a number of local foods
See the
What can you do? page for links to resources on how to find CSA farms, farmers markets and farms in this area.
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Blog of 100 mile diet participants
from Anna Campas (Delmar, NY) 9/2/06
Woman Does not live by Bread Alone
Yesterday was Day 1 of the 100MD and by afternoon I’m wallowing in feelings of deprivation and anxiety. Food provides more than nourishment – whether it be comfort or a reaction to boredom, I don’t know, but I missed my chocolate and nuts. Suddenly, the pastries in the cafeteria look a thousand times better.
It’s not until I go home to prepare my dinner of roasted free-range chicken, with rosemary leaves and grape tomatoes from my garden accompanied by local okra, fresh corn, that a light bulb (fluorescent of course) goes on in my head. Helped by more organically versed 21 year old son/dinner guest, I suddenly realize that I’m going about this all wrong. Throwing caution to the wind and following his advice, I drizzle a ripe peach on my chicken leg and succumb to a reframed reality: It’s not about deprivation, but “simple abundance” (Sarah Breathnach TM). Okay, I had a little of the crisp skin too and I can swear it tastes better than the hormonally-enhanced varieties in the supermarket. To get rid of the sugar deprivation headache, I go to swing dancing that night for a few hours.
I was a virgin twice this morning: the Troy Farmers Market and Honest Weight Food Coop in Albany. I found a good sampling of beef, pork and lamb and though I’m not typically a red meat eater, I’m curious enough to buy. I adhere to the theory that meat should be the condiment on your plate, and after I get over the sticker shock, it’s confirmed. Happily there is maple yogurt and sheep’s feta, as well as haricot beans! Since I came prepared to pay cash (I saw only one vendor who took MC) I did not have enough to buy local wine – next time.
On the way home, I pull into the Food Coop and start channeling Martha Stewart when I realize I can make fresh butter from the Meadowbrook Farms fresh cream by beating with a portable mixer (5 minutes tops). I pick out plenty of potatoes to bake and mash (comfort food!). I find assorted local fruits and vegetables (a lovely Hand melon) and sign up to work 3 hours a month for a 10% discount. I’m both ashamed and relieved to see that they take credit cards. On the way out I spot two huge crimson-red mum plants, $5 each and buy two.
Summing up: Because the Coop is close to my job, I’ll go there instead of using gas to drive to Troy. Today I found everything I wanted except bread. That is the one conundrum in this whole endeavor: how to find locally produced wheat that is milled and then baked fresh. Still searching. Anyone out there know?
from LK 9/2/06
After reading a few of the entries...I'm thinking now more of motives behind food choices rather than being concerned about the location whence they came. I could choose to buy milk and eggs from Stewart's and know I'm getting it locally, but I would rather buy organic, so I end up buying at the supermarket to get milk from VT or Stonyfield and I choose eggs based on Omega information and price. I truly believe supporting local farmers is essential to redeveloping many of the healthy ways of living we've forgotten in this new technology driven culture we all live in. I feel extremely fortunate, I can walk or bike to work, I practice massage therapy for a living, and I have a community garden and grow my own foods organically. Yes, it takes time, and yes it is more work than going to the Co-op, grocery store, or farmer's market. BUT it is worth every moment. I know how my food was grown, the love and care it received from the time the seed was planted until I make a meal.
A word on the value of gardening time: An earlier blogger mentioned modest pay of $15/hr for canning pickles! Let's be honest, if people could work on a farm and make 15 per hour, a lot more people would be doing it!! $15 isn't modest, it's absurd and most of those working on farms are lucky to clear minimum wage. It isn't about the money though. It is about a more resourceful way of life. Most Americans have no idea what real work is or how to grow their own food. When you sweat and hurt for 8 hours in the hot sun, so you can manually till, weed, and plant your seeds and tranplants you start to feel human again. Of course you can still hear your cell phone ring, and cars zooming by so it isn't an alternate reality, but it's worth trying.
So before you venture to say that growing your own food is out of the question or not worth the work, contact the Capital District Community Gardens and find out how you can get involved and see what a difference it can make in your life (& your family's life)and your community. There's likely a plot in your town and even if all you want to do is grow tomatoes, you have that option.
So, grow on my friends, grow on.
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Archive of blog entries:
from Jen N. 8/31/06
Just enjoying my last day of food as I know it. Bananas, chocolate... I knew it was only a matter of time when my mom became Energy Woman until something like this would happen. So now I'm the 15-year-old daughter, who's vaguely more supportive than the 12-year-old. I have to say, I was sorely disappointed when she didn't make an outrageously NOT LOCAL meal for dinner. But we had local carrots, local potatoes... Probably 90% of the ingredients in that stew were local. "The bread's not. And neither is the wine- it's from Australia," Mom points out, smiling mockingly.
"I don't drink wine," I respond grumpily. She just shrugs.
I have been supportive though- she's not just saying that. As soon as I realized I really didn't have a choice, unless I spent my limited babysitting funds on groceries, I treated the whole ordeal in a much more optimistic way. I started making mental lists of my benefits:
1.) Local vegetables taste better (when they're not summer squash)
2.) Mom will surely love me unconditionally for being on her side
3.) I have that much more to complain about (I'm extremely fond of complaining)
4.) Because of my knack for complaining, my friends all feel really sorry for me
5.) When my sympathetic friends smuggle me chocolate and olives at school, it will taste that much better
And as for now, I'm off to mentally prepare for a month of potatoes, cheese, bread, granola, milk and cider.
from Bill Nechamen (Schenectady, NY) 8/31/06
Hi. Well I'm the supportive husband in this role. I can't say I would have pursued the 100-mile diet idea on my own. But wives can be extremely influential and, after all, I do support the reasons for the 100-mile diet.
Some people at work do think this is a little crazy, but others are supportive. Maybe I can even find some to join! I work at the Environmental Conservation Department, so most of the people there are already open to concepts of sustainability. But far too many also drive their SUV's in from Saratoga and Warren Counties! Tomorrow, I'll bring in some brochures and see if we get any takers.
The past couple of weeks have seen a lot of time devoted to planning, web searching for products, and looking around. The Troy Farmers' Market remains a prime source, as well as our CSA farm share. We checked out the Honest Weight food coop, as well as the Niskayuna coop. The Honest Weight seems to be the better choice for local foods beyond produce. And they are open to better labeling to help people see where the bulk foods come from. At the suggestion of a co-worker, we checked out Indian Ladder Farms in New Scotland. They label many items as local. However their own brand of apple butters and jams say "packaged for Indian Ladder Farms." There is no indication of where they are packaged. We did bring home some locally labeled apple butter, jams, and some incredible Palatine Bridge sharp cheddar cheese.
Tomorrow is September 1. We still have no cereal and my diet maintenance has depended on replacing my morning bagel with a heaping bowl of roughage and low fat milk. For the short term, I can go with some local bread from the Troy Farmers Market (Grains from the Champlain Valley) and cheese. But for the long term, I don't think this would be good for my diet. Lunch doesn't worry me. There is that great cheese and plenty of tomatoes and cukes, plus leftover dinner food. Dinner is the easiest. Still, we have no local oil, vinegar, or ketchup.
An amendment to the 100-mile diet is that it seems to be perfectly ok to bring back products from travels, as long as you don't travel strictly for the food. I have a day trip to Ithaca for work next week. Perhaps I'll find some good Finger Lakes grains and vineyard products to bring home.
from Jim Zack (Sustainable Saratoga Springs) 8/30/06
Embarking on the 100-mile Diet, here are some thoughts and concerns I have:
What I cannot do without (foods originating outside 100-mile radius of Saratoga Springs):
Coffee
Tea
Organic Sugar (for pickling, canning)
Soymilk (for protein shakes)
Bananas (for smoothies)
Mock-meats (for vegan protein)
Avocados (for guacamole, calories, good fat)
Wheat-flour baked goods (for carbohydrates)
Lemons (for juice)
Canning/Sea Salt (for food preservation)
I am doing an imprecise Return on Investment for my bio-intensive garden, and I don't think currently there is enough incentive to grow/buy/eat local. I can buy a jar of organic kosher dills for about $4 in a grocery store. I can spend an afternoon pickling six jars myself (at the modest labor rate of 3 hours labor at $15/hr) not including the time/effort to grow the cukes or the water and energy needed to pickle them. The convenience of our modern food delivery system--made possible by subsidies and economies of scale--doesn't make the "local" route appealing enough. If we didn't have jobs building someone else's "pyramids," the idea of growing/putting by one's own food would be appealing, but we're so entrenched in a culture of debt and growth, that the two (self-sufficiency/relocalization and service sector employment) are not yet reconcilable. I think this is a grand demonstration of the type of diet that may become commonplace after a petro- and infrastructure collapse, but as long as the subsidies are in place and the costs to the environment and finite fossil fuel reserves are hidden from the consumer, it'll be hard for the average US citizen to justify giving up the convenience of modern commodity shopping, easy motoring, and working without producing anything of tangible value.
I think the single most important pledge I can make is to choose to buy (or pick) the most local foodstuffs and commodities, even if there is a non-local item available at a lesser price. Thus I would buy a bushel of local apples rather than a variety from Washington State. Or pick my own peppers, rather than buying from the farmers market or the grocery store.
from Ruth Lamb (Hague, NY) 8/29/06
There are 3 farmer's markets in Glens Falls - a good place to start.
Monday (3-6pm) Elks on Cronin Road
Tuesday (11-2) Civic Center
Saturday (8-12) South Street Pavilion (May to Nov.)
Sweet Spring Farm (Argyle) 692-7445 comes to Tues. market with goat cheese.
Beefalo available from Winchell Creek Stock Farm, 676 East Starbuck Road, Fort Ann, 12827 - George Gramlich
Organic milk Tilldale Farm, Hoosick, NY (off Rt 7, 30 miles northeast of Albany) One can vist there Sept 23 from 1-5 for an Organic Consumer Workshop. Register at 585 271-1979 or email kate.organicdairy@nofany.org
Finding local grains, flour appears to be a big hurdle to me.
I hope to participate as I can.
from Anna Campas (Delmar, NY) 8/26/06
100-MILE DIET – GAME PLAN
Countdown – Preparation Work
Today I came up with a game plan that incorporates some of the ideas for September:
I got a NYS map and drew a 100 mile radius from Delmar. I checked out the larger cities to get a feel for the boundaries: I see Utica, Poughkeepsie, Kingston and even Newburgh in my area. Also Springfield, Mass., Torrington, Ct. and Bennington, Vermont. The map is on my kitchen wall so I can check anytime I consider purchasing something. I even considered using straight pins to locate towns from which my food comes.
Today I checked out a local butcher : Falvo’s in Slingerlands, the next town over from Delmar. They carry Murray’s free-range chicken from North Fallsburg – in the Catskills. Yes! They also carry locally made cheese from Palatine. I bought a whole chicken to freeze for next weekend when we kickoff the 100MD and I also decided to record prices:
a) Chicken $2.49/lb - the butcher cut it up for free.
b) Cheese Xsharp cheddar $7.89/lb. (Ouch!)
I will be trying to find sources as close to home as possible. I have a marvelous bumper crop of plum and grape tomatoes outside in my backyard. The Delmar Health Hut down the street carries local milk and eggs (no lactose free milk though). The Health Food Coop in Albany has chicken and beef along with fruits, vegetables, and dairy. The local Hannaford market is only a 10’minute bike ride away and carries local produce. I will need to find local butter, nuts and yogurt. My beloved Stonyfield yogurt is from Londonderry, NH – about 150 miles. Exception? Not yet, right now I’m only allowing coffee as an exception.
Since I can’t use olive oil or most other oils, I will need to use butter for cooking - or even chicken fat. Also must look for local flour and bread.
Some Random Thoughts:
a) I am tracing the 100 miles as the crow flies. Technically it should be 100 road miles but that’s a whole other matter.
b) During weekdays I’ll have to get up earlier to eat at home – can’t count on any food at the cafeteria in the Tower Bldg. to be local. I will miss my favorite pumpkin seed granola cereal (made in Washington state) and Nature Valley granola bars from Minneapolis. A lot of my favorite cupboard and fridge items were from hundreds or thousands of miles away.
c) I plan to weigh myself at start and once a week thereafter – I predict a weight loss of 5 pounds though that is not the intention but a beneficial sidelight of this endeavor. Would have been good to keep track of numbers for cholesterol, blood pressure, waist and hip measurements, etc sort of a reverse “Supersize Me.”
d) Self- discipline is going to be required and lots of it!
from Sheree C. (Rensselaer County, NY) 8/26/06
I do have some favorites:
For beef: from Judy and Frank's Sweet Tree Farm (Carlisle, NY)- are at Troy Farmers Market, have grass fed beef - vital to health to eat grass fed, as opposed to grain fed, beef and dairy.
for raw milk organic cheese: from Sam Hendren's Clover Mead Farm (Keeseville, NY)- is at Troy Farmers Market
For raw milk, at Chuck Phippen's farm: Breese Hollow Dairy, just off Route 7 in Hoosick, nearly at Vermont border.
for peaches: from Paul's Little River Farm (Hudson)- is at Troy Farners Market).
for mushrooms: Wiltbank Farms (at Troy Farmers Market)
wine (local, of course):Colebrook Winery (Troy Farmers Market)
from Terri Tuers (Latham, NY) 8/26/06:
I was just at Roma Foods in Latham, off Rt. 9. Besides lots of organic meats and other products, they have chicken from a farm down near Ellenville, NY. I believe that would fit the 100 mile radius. The other organic meat is from Kansas (Boo Hiss!) I did tell them about the 100 Mile Diet. Now I can drop off a brochure.
from Donna Askins (Elgin, IL) 8/15/06:
Finding local food is definitely difficult. There is a farmer's market where I live, but it holds its hours something like Tuesdays 2-4 ... basically impossible for those of us who work full time.
The best resource I have found is heavy networking, layers deep, as if you were hunting for a particular kind of job. The UU church has been a source of like-minded people & their knowledge. Through friends of friends, for example, I discovered a family that keeps chickens & sells the eggs. A difficulty is that the family doesn't want to be open to the public. Their production is not scaled that big, plus they want to keep a circle of trusted customers who can just go in the barn, get the eggs, & leave the money. At the moment our public culture is so big scary & impersonal, I can't blame them. So I think people like that will be hard to find. And it points to a greater need -- that there need to be more people like that -- and they should be us. I mean I'm starting to agree with the notion that everybody should garden at least a little bit.
But also I have been wondering, and maybe you would find this much of use, if we could somehow tweak our chain-type grocery stores. What if we lobbied the local managers to carry more local food? They could label it as such, as they do the rare happy organic selections. What if they would be willing to bend just a little, and sell my organically grown backyard garden produce on consignment? Would that be too co-op-ish, or just plain weird? One fine day when I have whipped the laws of physics and I discover how to be several people, that will be my next project. ...It's ironic that we both live in regions that are known for food production, yet it is so difficult to obtain that fruit. I guess we could just head out of town, and start knocking on doors. How long would it take to map our cities in this way?
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This is just a beginning for a list of where we can find local foods. Please
contact us to add your favorites.
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