Shared Local Meals

Share locally-produced food with your community.

Why?

Where does your food come from and how do you enjoy it? Eating foods that are produced locally is one of the easiest and most powerful ways you can reduce your carbon emissions. Just think about how much jet fuel it takes to get tangerines from Morocco to Michigan! Or even the gas that went into a truck hauling refrigerated lettuce from California.

Despite our “refreshing” climate, Michigan can produce a lot of food, and with a little planning you can even enjoy its summer bounty year round. Sharing meals of local food then becomes even more fun, because it starts a whole movement of asking, “where did you get that yummy food?”

Locally produced food, especially mostly organic* and meat-free** meals:

  • is full of nutrition
  • uses oodles less petroleum to get to you
  • are yummy
  • supports the local economy
  • connects you to your food and community in new ways

How?

Recipe: Building Community & Reducing Carbon by Sharing a Locally-Made Meal

Ingredients:

  1. some friends, neighbors, co-workers
  2. local food (see below)
  3. favorite recipes

    4. Steps:

    1. Invite some friends over for dinner.
    2. Get some local food.
    3. Cook it up, even prepare the meal together.
    4. Do it again, for yourself and others – become part of Washtenaw’s 10% Local Food Challenge
    5. Over your scrumptious dinners talk about next 350 recipes to try!
    6. Take turns inviting friends and community members to your home next time! You are ready to try another recipe!

    How to find local food

    • Grow your own – in your backyard, in pots, or in a community garden — [link to Plant a Community Garden Recipe, above]. You can even go beyond plants: “grow your own” eggs (backyard chicken coop) or honey (urban beekeeping) — what, how?? Check out the Local Table programs at Matthaei Botanical Gardens and classes at Project Grow.
    • Visit a Farmer’s Market – not just in Ann Arbor - they are all over Michigan!
    • Look for “local” or “made in Michigan” labels at stores like Arbor Farms, The People’s Food Coop (note: you do not have to be a member to shop here), or Whole Foods
    • Get food right from your local farms! Find them at Local Harvest or even join a local CSA  - Community Supported Agriculture – and get a weekly share of local produce all summer long.
    • Join a winter share of local produce and/or meats such as Locavorious or Brines Farm or The Long Winter Kitchen.
    • Freeze or preserve your summer bounty (Easy Method: Put them right into a sealed container in the freezer for winter use: whole raw tomatoes – yes, it works, blanched corn cut off the cob, blanched greens or green beans, raw chopped onions, red peppers, or herbs)

    In real life

    Locally-produced food can be shared simply over candlelight for two. A group in Northeast Ann Arbor has extended this idea further by opening their home each Friday morning to a neighborhood breakfast of scrumptios local foods.

    * Chemical fertilizer requires huge amounts of energy – petroleum – to produce, so organically produced foods tend to have lower energy inputs.

    ** Eating lower on the food chain uses less energy overall. That is, the plants from an area of land can make enough food for 10 people if they eat the plants, but for only 1 person if you first feed those plants to a cow and then the person eats the beef. There’s just a lot of energy lost, not to mention methane produced (i.e. greenhouse gasses).