CH O I CES FOOD
The Cheat-Local Diet
How to subsist on regional produce all winter—without flavor fatigue
eating seasonal foods from small nearby farms reduces the miles
that your grub travels to get to your plate, and supports local, often
family-run farms that use eco-friendly growing practices. But let’s get
real—most of us live in places where the pickins’ are slim in the dead
of winter. It can seem impossible to support the local-food cause without ending up with root-vegetable overload or a case of scurvy.
So we rounded up a few of the most common non-local foods and
looked at alternatives. Some have easy substitutions, while others
force even the most local-minded chefs to bend the rules—but we’ll
show you how to do it in an eco-friendly way.
BANANAS Most bananas hail
from large single-crop plantations
in Central and South America,
76 | Feb/Mar/07 plentymag.com
where they’re doused with pesticides and then shipped thousands
of miles to U.S. supermarkets. As
BY CHRISTY HARRISON
a substitute, consider the pawpaw
instead—a cousin of the banana
that grows wild in 26 states and
is sold in farmers’ markets in late
summer and autumn. Pawpaw
season is short, but some purveyors sell the frozen puree yearround, and it can be used in equal
parts for banana in most recipes.
Best of all, the pawpaw tree
requires few or no pesticides, and
the fruit packs a nutritious punch,
with the same amount of potassium as bananas, twice as much
vitamin C, and more protein.
Buy pawpaw puree from Lagier
Ranches in California (www.lagierranches.com) or Integration Acres
in Ohio (integrationacres.com).
And if you’re still craving a fresh
banana, a brand-new, eco-rific banana company called Oké (okeusa.
com) is coming to a natural food
store or co-op near you—check the
website for locations.
SALAD GREENS Production of
salad greens is highly concen-