Jeff Pelline: Remember: You are what you eat

If you read the front page yesterday, you’ll see that Nevada City apparently has found a clever way to get residents to support the “buy local” campaign: effectively sticking some of them with a higher sales tax rate for online purchases. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional.

Anyway, I’m eager to see the “buy local” campaign get under way this fall. I’ve heard about all the marketing efforts: signs and stickers galore. But I hope it comes with some substance, too, such as customer-service training for small businesses.

The biggest upside, I think, is a “buy local” campaign for our food producers. It’s a true “win-win.” Local food is fresher (have you read the label on some packaged foods?) and it puts money in the hands of our locals.

The 2007-08 Nevada County Farm Guide that Laura Brown reported about on Tuesday is a good start for an education about the local growers’ market. If you read the 20-page guide (go to http://localfoodcoalition.org), you’ll find maps and writeups of local businesses.

“In today’s global market, it is especially important to know where your food comes from and who grows it,” said county Agricultural Commissioner Jeff Pylman in the booklet. “When you buy direct, you can talk to the grower about the product and how it was grown. Enjoy the quality of fresh in-season produce that was picked ripe.

Partake in locally produced grass-fed beef. Try local wines at a tasting room. During the holiday season, choose a locally grown Christmas tree.”

Amen Mr. Pylman. I remember living in Chicago for graduate school and going to the Dominick’s supermarket in the dead of winter for produce. It was wrapped tightly in plastic and didn’t look too good. Twenty-five years ago, native Californians like me were used to buying fresh produce individually, even in winter.

The ongoing food safety problems in China, and last year’s E. coli spinach scare in the San Joaquin Valley (the “long, brown Valley,” as Steinbeck called it — “Eeew!” I don’t think he envisioned this) are examples of risks with our food supplies.

Marketing can complicate matters, too. Lots of food is marketed as being fresh and wholesome, with catchy names, but you don’t exactly know how it was grown.

Local food sales definitely can bring visibility to a rural area. Marin County comes to

mind with its “Humboldt Fog” or “Cowgirl Creamery” cheeses or Fossil, Ore. with its “Painted Hills” natural beef. Both are highly popular and featured at expensive restaurants across the country.

Our county has excellent locally grown food as well. Some of the products we buy that are featured in this year’s farm guide include:

• Nevada County free-range beef, offered at BriarPatch Market

• Smith Vineyard wines, from SPD

• Lots of fresh produce from local farms, at the Thursday Night Grower’s Market and

Grower’s Market at the Fairgrounds.

I also confess to picking some blackberries from bushes with my son and eating them on the walk back from my sister-in-law (and his aunt’s) house in Nevada City.

If you thumb through the farm guide, you’ll find some interesting-sounding farms to visit. As the weather cools down, it’s a good time to take a drive through the area and visit some of the farms and wineries.

Don’t forget the Christmas Tree farms as the holidays approach. The farm guide lists four of them.

The recent State of the Sierra report by the Sierra Business Council addresses the importance of a “buy local” campaign to the region’s economy.

“Sierra Nevada leaders must develop awareness for community-based businesses through consumer education and marketing programs that encourage consumers and businesses to purchase locally and support independent businesses,” according to the report. “Communities that produce and buy products locally create more self-reliant, stronger economies by keeping and re-spending dollars.”

At a time when the economy is slowing down, when we’re losing shopping dollars “down the hill,” and when we’re having trouble creating new jobs and attracting young families, a “buy local” campaign makes a lot of practical sense.

Now might be a good time to take Frances Moore Lappe’s “Diet for a Small Planet” off the bookshelf if you’ve still got it around. It’s been on my shelf for about three decades. Whether you believe in vegetarianism or not, the book provides an interesting perspective on how the food chain works. It also includes some healthy recipies.

As Lappe has put it: “The act of putting into your mouth what the earth has grown is perhaps your most direct interaction with the earth.”

Or, if that sounds too complicated, just remember the simpler phrase: You are what you eat.

ooo

Jeff Pelline is the editor of The Union. His column appears on Saturdays. Contact him at 477-4235, jeffp@theunion.com, or 464 Sutton Way, Grass Valley 95945.