A community that can feed itself is free.

Joel Salatin

from Holy Cows and Hog Heaven

Read, hear, see, and surf

Links for learning more about topics of interest to Localvores

This area keeps growing and growing!  To make it more useable, the date that the item has been added will be shown after the description.  Items are also listed in chronological order with the most recent at the top of each list.

Contents

• Recent US Food Recalls

• Video

• Audio

• Articles

• Books

• Movies/Documentaries

• Publication and Reports

• Organizations

• Other Great Websites

• Other Localvore/Locavore Groups

STILL SKEPTICAL?

Check out what a Localvore really is and why it is important by clicking here.

Video

New England Cable News on Localvores starring Tara Hamilton and son Noah Eckstein and farm Dave Hartshorn

The Farm Bill  What is all the ruckus about the five year farm bill and why is it important?

Curious about why you should eat more local food??? Check out Mad River Valley Localvores Flo and Bill Miller's video and you will find out why. And, vote for it while you are there!

The Super Bowl Diet  What would happen if you ate all of the foods advertised on the 2007 Super Bowl?

The Meatrix 2 1/2  Just released, this short animation takes Leo and crew to an industrialized meat packing plant.

The True Cost of Food  A 15 minute animated video that explains what a simple meal would really cost if had to pay for all of the externalized costs associated with producing, packaging, and transporting food.

Grocery Store Wars  Animated short video about organic fruits and vegetables.

The Meatrix  Animated short video about factory farms and feedlot meats.

The Meatrix 2  Animated short video about factory dairy farming.

Beyond Organic:  The Story of Polyface Farm  Joel Salatin speaking to Michael Pollan's class at the University of California Berkley.

Krafted  A short film about genetically "Krafted" prepared foods.

Take a Pass on Chilean Sea Bass  A short animated film about the environmental issues created with the high consumer demand for Chilean Sea Bass.

Audio

Raw Milk discussion on VPR's Vermont Edition.  Scroll down to August 28, 2007.

The Spinach E.coli Scare with Marion Nestle and Joel Salatin on the radio show On Point.

Dinner, An Author Considers the Source - Interview with Michael Pollan on Fresh Air with Terry Gross  ***This is a MUST listen to***

Omnivore's Dilemma - Interview with Michael Pollan on Talk of the Nation (NPR)

Eat Locally, Spice Globally - Interview on VPR's Morning Edition with Robin McDermott  about Localvores

Learn more about The Chicken Event - Interview on Anthony Polina's Equal Time Radio Show with George Schenk, Connie Gaylord, and Robin McDermott about the Chicken Event.

Articles

Extreme Eating in Time Magazine A humorous poke at Localvores by a self-proclaimed distavore.

Relationship Farming by Joel Salatin  Discusses the important relationship on a farm between the soil, the plants, the animals, the people, the community, and the customers.

Close to Home  An article from the Land Trust Alliance by Bill McKibben on how a few acres of conserved land can help reduce global warming.

Localvores Manifest  Article in the Times Argus on Eating Local and the September Eat Local Challenges. Added 09/07/2007

The 100-Mile Diet  Article in The Nation on the benefits of eating more locally. Added 09/07/2007

Wheat is Poised for a Comeback  A great article in the Time's Argus about the work being done by the UVM Ag Extension on bringing wheat back to Vermont. Added 09/07/2007

Watch Your Foodometer  A great article in The Nation that includes information asking about how far "progress" has really taken us.  Includes a great video about the distance food travels and the cost of non-local food.  Added 07/01/2007

Preserving Fossil Fuels and Nearby Farmlands by Eating Locally The Localvores make it into the New York Times!  Added 04/25/2007

Pig Out Editorial in the NYT about how, with some fanfare, the world’s largest pork producer, Smithfield Foods, recently announced that it intended to phase out certain cages for its breeding females. Called gestation crates, the cages virtually immobilize pigs during their pregnancies in metal stalls so narrow they are unable to turn around.  This article suggests that is just the first step to more humane treatment of animals being raised for food.  Don't read this if you still want to have an appetite for factory farm pork.

Stalking the Vegetannual article in Orion by Barbara Kingsolver on eating with the seasons.  This is a great article presenting the concept of seasonal eating from a different angle - makes it hard to argue with.

Eating Better than Organic cover story of the March 12, 2007 issue of Time Magazine.  Eating Local has gone mainstream!  Added 03/09/2007

Unhappy Meals by Michael Pollan from the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Added 02/09/2007

Survival of the Yummiest by Daniel Engber Should we buy Michael Pollan's nutritional Darwinism?  Added 02/09/2007

Food to Stay by Gary Nabhan How a local food system builds health and community wealth from YES! Magazine.  Added 02/09/2007

Eating Local 101  College cafeterias are serving more local foods these days says this article from the Baltimore Sun.   11/7/2006

A dining critic could never truly be on vacation in Vermont, where honest, local food is all around.  An article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the local bounty in Vermont.  11/7/2006

The Organic Myth  Article in business week that challenges the current day notion of organic.  Features quotes from Jack Lazor of Butterworks farm in Vermont.

Why solve the problem when you can apply a technological band aid??  ARmark Authentication Technologies claims their technology can help trace food back to its original source (this would have been beneficial with the e-coli spinach contamination issue in September 2006) by spraying tiny digestible markers tinier than specks of dust, but that can hold up to 16 lines of text.

The Vegetable Industrial Complex  An article by Michael Pollan in the NYT Sunday Magazine reflecting on the spinach-e.coli issue and his concerns about how the government will solve the problem (see the article above on ARmark Authentication Technologies for one ridiculous approach.

Local or Organic?  This article tackles the question of which is better, local or organic as large chains such as Wal-Mart are now hopping on the organic band wagon.  It also has some good links to other resources.

Fossil Fuel for Breakfast - Just how much fossil fuel was burned to deliver a 400 calorie breakfast to your table?  Great article that supports one of the many reasons to eat more locally produced products.

Living on the Hundred Mile Diet - A series of articles follows Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon as they vow to eat and drink only food that was produced within 100 miles from their home in Vancover, BC.  Among their fascinating entries include A Local Eating Rhapsody, Why We Pay Too Little for Well-Traveled Food, and Wanted, a Perfectly Local Chicken.

Globetrotting Food Will Travel Farther Than Ever This Thanksgiving - Some statistics on how far food travels.

Bill McKibben ate only locally produced foods during the winter of 2005-2006 and wrote about his experience in Gourmet Magazine, July 2005.

Food and the Future from Nature On-Line.  An series of articles focused on sustainable food.

How Local is Local?  Linda Schneider reflects on the amazing variety of food producers/resources on just one five mile stretch of road in Hartland, VT.

From Farms to Frying Pan - the story of the Farmer's Diner and how to question where your food really is coming from.

Growing Your Own Food Can Be Profitable - An article by Gene Logsdon about the huge savings you can realize by growing your own food.

What Are You Buying When You are Buying Organic - If you think that Organic farms mean small scale mom and pop operations better think again. 

Everything I Want to Do is Illegal - A great article written by Joel Salatin for Acres Magazine in 2003 highlighting numerous activities (farm and other) that you would think should be a right in a free society, yet are restricted by government regulations and laws that are supposed to "protect" us. 

Sustaining Vision - A great introduction to pioneer farmer Joel Salatin.  This article is by Michael Pollan and was in Gourmet Magazine a few years back.

Vermont Farmers lead the Organic Movement - article in the Montpelier Times-Argus about how Vermont Dairy farmers are converting to organic milk to generate more revenue from their farms.

The Vermont Localvore Movement - Article on from the Times Argus.

Books

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopps and Camille Kingsolver (HarperCollins, May 2007). A popular novelist chronicles her family's attempt "to buy only food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it."  Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver returns with her first nonfiction narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat.

Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon (the 100-mile diet people!)  Review by Robin....I thought that this book was really good.  I have read just about all of the books on eating locally and although I expected more of the same, this book was easy to read because the writing is really good and you really appreciate what these folks attempted to do for a year.  They were much more devout than Barbara Kingsolver and made a lot of great connections with the folks who fed them.

Holy Cows and Hog Heaven by Joel Salatin  Billed as the food buyers guide to farm friendly food, it goes without saying that "farm friendly" is local.  This is the book that inspired George Schenk to hold the Chicken Event.

Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.  In this groundbreaking book, one of America’s most fascinating, original, and elegant writers turns his own omnivorous mind to the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. The surprising answers Pollan offers to the simple question posed by this book have profound political, economic, psychological, and even moral implications for all of us.

Seedkeepers of Crescentville a novel by Jeanne Prevett Sable.  Fay Rezendes returns to her home town of Crescentville, Vermont with her spirited young daughter to heal from an ailing marriage. Crops grown in the uniquely-situated farming town seem immune to the genetic contamination sweeping the globe, until a marketing blitz by the regional director of the world's leading biotech seed and chemical corporation threatens to change everything. When the beloved little girl is stricken with a mysterious illness, the community rallies in a desperate attempt to safeguard their children and preserve the heirloom crops and old time breeds that have become the town's hallmark. Is it too late? And how hard must they fight?

Coming Home to Eat by Gary Paul Nabhan  The Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods.  A celebration of food and culture with a social conscience, in the tradition of M. F. K. Fisher and Frances Moore Lappé.

Incredible Vegetables from Self-Watering Containers by Ed Smith.  Local doesn't get much closer than home!  Even if you can't have a garden for whatever reason, Ed, a Vermonter from the Northeast Kingdom, will show you how to grow many different types of vegetables right in a self-watering container.

Full Moon Feast by Jessica Prentice.  Accomplished chef and passionate food activist Jessica Prentice champions locally grown, humanely raised foods and traditional cooking methods.

The Revolution Will Not be Microwaved by Sandor Katz.  In The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved, author Sandor Ellix Katz (Wild Fermentation, Chelsea Green 2003) profiles grassroots activists who are taking on Big Food, creating meaningful alternatives, and challenging the way many Americans think about food. Hey!  It is a book about us!!!  This book will be available on October 1, 2006.

Mad Sheep by Linda Faillace.  The page-turning account of a government cover-up, corporate greed, and a courageous family’s fight to save their Vermont sheep farm.  This book will be available on September 15, 2006.

Harvest for Hope:  A Guide to Mindful Eating by Jane Goodall.  This book takes readers through the early history of agriculture, through the mismanagement of crop farming to today's genetically modified foods and the horrors of today's factory farms. On a smaller scale, Dr. Goodall focuses on choices that can be made at an individual level.

Movies/Documentaries About Current Food Issues

Sweet Soil - Sweet Soil shares the stories of four family farms, a natural foods store committed to supporting them, and a community’s passion for fresh, local food. Set to a toe-tapping, fiddle-driven soundtrack by local musicians, Sweet Soil captures the spectacular autumnal beauty of the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts at harvest time.

The Future of Food - THE FUTURE OF FOOD offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade.

Food for the Future - FOOD FOR THE FUTURE tells the story of the founding of the pioneering Floyd Boulevard Local Foods Market - the first farmers market in the nation to exclusively sell humanely raised animal products and organic/chemical free produce.

What Will We Eat - The Search for Healthy Local Food" tells the story of the growing failure of the industrial food system and how a grassroots coalition of small farmers and consumers is inventing a healthy, humane, homegrown alternative.

Fed Up - About 70% of the food we eat contains genetically modified ingredients and is not labeled. The biotechnology industry is spending $50 million a year to convince us that this technology is our only hope for feeding the world and saving the environment. Family farmers are disappearing at an astonishing rate as people continue to go hungry both here and abroad. Toxic agricultural chemicals continue to poison our air, food and water and put farm workers in serious danger. What's a person to do?

The Global Banquet - The video examines the ethical questions at the heart of the globalization debate and shows what farmers, laborers, environmentalists, animal rights activists, church groups and students, here and in the developing world, are doing to address the situation.

Chef's a 'Field - While this is a departure from the other films listed, these are great half hour shows from the PBS cooking series that featured the relationship between chefs and farmers.  The first episode of the second year featured American Flatbread, Eastman Long's Maple Syrup, and Hadley Gaylord's sausage.

Soylent Green - Another departure, but an interesting discussion starter.  The classic 1973 science fiction movie, set in the year 2022, depicts a future dystopia, a Malthusian catastrophe that takes place because humanity has failed to pursue sustainable development and has not halted population growth. Global warming, air and water pollution have produced a year-round heatwave. Food and fuel resources are scarce, housing is dilapidated and overcrowded, and widespread government-sponsored euthanasia is encouraged as a means of reducing overpopulation. Charlton Heston plays Robert Thorn, a New York City police detective, investigating the suspicious murder of William R. Simonson (Joseph Cotten), a former member of the board of the Soylent Corporation. Thorn's roommate is Sol Roth (Edward G. Robinson), a onetime college professor who is an elderly police researcher.  Robin's husband Ray gets credit for digging this one up from the past!

Publications and Reports

Land, Bread, and History:  A Research Report on the Potential for Food Self-Sufficiency in Vermont

Vermont Commons - Check out their April 2006 issue dedicated to sustainable food in Vermont.

Organizations

Rural Vermont  Advocating for economic justice for family farms.  Rural Vermont was largely responsible for the passage of the Vermont "Chicken Bill."

Vital Communities - The original incubator for the Vermont/New Hampshire Localvore movement. 

Rootswork - A not-for-profit organization in the Mad River Valley dedicated to the promotion of sustainable agriculture and sustainable communities.

Center for Whole Communities - a not-for-profit organization in the Mad River Valley dedicated to building stronger connections between people, land, and community.

The Organic Consumers Association - A wealth of information.

Vermont Farms Association - founded in 1998 to provide educational opportunities about Vermont agriculture to the public.  An easy to use, searchable directory of member farms.

NOFA-VT - The Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont

ACME - The Action Coalition for Media Education.  An organization dedicated to teaching media education:  knowledge, skills, and activism.  Scroll down to Morpheus the Cow for their Food For Thought document - rich in resource information.

Slow Food USA

Vermont Earth Institute - Vermont Earth Institute educates and supports Vermonters to reduce consumption and adopt environmentally sustainable practices in their homes, workplaces and communities.

Other Great Websites

Local Food Dude  Chef Tim Cipriano doesn't work in a fancy restaurant.  Instead he has dedicated himself to sharing his knowledge about food with kids.  As the Food Service Director for Bloomfield, CT Public Schools. Chef Tim is an active participant in the CT Farm to School Program. He is actively searching for new ways to increase the use of locally procured products into the schools.

Farm Fresh Rhode Island  Traveling to Rhode Island?  Here is a great website to find local, farm-fresh food in the Ocean State.

Feeding America: The Historic American Cookbook Project  This is a totally cool website! The Michigan State University Library and the MSU Museum have partnered to create an online collection of some of the most influential and important American cookbooks from the late 18th to early 20th century. The goal of this project is to make these materials available to a wider audience. Digital images of the pages of each cookbook are available as well as full-text transcriptions and the ability to search within the books, across the collection, in order to find specific information.

The Dinner Hour - A weekly radio show on WMRW-LP (95.1 FM in the Mad River Valley) that focuses on fresh, local, and healthy food talk.

Polyface Farm - Innovative farmer Joel Salatin's website.

The Grace Factory Farm Project - Educational Information on Factory Farming

The Eating Well Guide - Information on sources of sustainable/local food sources throughout the US.

FoodRoutes - Has a directory of local food sources as well as great articles forcused on buying locally produced food.

Sustainable Table - What an amazing resource chocked full of information, facts, and ideas to support sustainable food.

The 100 Mile Diet - When the average North American sits down to eat, each ingredient has typically traveled at least 1,500 miles—call it "the SUV diet." On the first day of spring, 2005, Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon chose to confront this unsettling statistic with a simple experiment. For one year, they would buy or gather their food and drink from within 100 miles of their apartment in Vancouver, British Columbia.  This website chronicles their journey and also provide great resources.

Oceans Alive - While not exactly "local" every now and then you just need some good fish or seafood.  This site has a great directory of all kinds of fish and seafood that provides detailed information on how eco- and health-friendly the seafood selection is.

Other Localvore Groups (as of May 2007 - please call Robin McDermott 496-3567 with updates if info is inaccurate)

The Originals - the Locavores of the San Francisco Bay area.

www.eatlocalvt.org

www.vermontlocalvore.org

www.uvlocalvore.com

http://www.hannahgrimes.com

www.postoilsolutions.org

www.seacoasteatlocal.org

www.acornvt.org/localvore.html

http://skyobrien.googlepages.com/localvores