... Because we realized that we don't. Just started reading
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. And although books like Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food, Plenty are on our bookshelf, we never have given much thought to knowing where all of our food comes from, or how much of our food we actually know where it comes from. Yes, we are conscious of where we shop and buy our food (as much as possible from farmers at our local farmers market with a conscious effort to buy local, sustainable and organic from Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, etc. when we go there). But started thinking about our dinner tonight (Italian sausage and fennel pizza) and realized that we don't know much about where our food actually comes from.
Here is the ingredient list from dinner tonight:
- Herb slab from Acme Bread, purchased at farmer's market: Ingredients - unbleached organic wheat flour, water, EVOO, sea salt, yeast, malted barley flour. We know that Acme baked it, but we've never thought about how we don't know where any of the ingredients come from.
- Creamy marinara pasta sauce from Napa Valley Bistro, purchased at Whole Foods: Ingredients - interestingly enough, the Italian plum tomatoes are imported from the San Marzano region of Italy but don't know where the rest of the ingredients come from.
- Organic mild white cheddar cheese from 365 (Whole Foods brand): Ingredients - from organic milk but no idea from where.
- Italian sausage made from heritage breed pigs from Shasta Valley Farm, purchased via pork CSA: We actually know where the pork came from, but interesting that we have never been to the farm nor know much of anything about them.
- Organic fennel, grown in our community garden plot: This is the only thing where actually know where it came from.
Now, we're intrigued. The results will surely change daily depending on what we are eating, but it will be interesting to track how much of the food we eat do we actually know where it came from. And there are definitely things we could to better understand where our food comes from. Simple steps like eating more vegetables and less processed foods, and buying cheese from one of the farmers market stands (preferably one that we know and have visited their farm); intermediate steps like buying tomatoes, garlic and basil from the farmers market and making our pasta sauce; and bigger steps like making our pasta dough (though this would still beg the question of where the flour and other ingredients have come from). All in all, an interesting experiment to undertake.
I forget how I got turned onto the City Dirt email newsletter ("The Bay Area Weekly Garden Newsletter for Foodies, Foragers, Tree-Huggers and Beauty Lovers"), but however it happened I'm glad we did. Every week's newsletter includes interesting looks at different aspects of sustainable food, such as pieces on a local chef foraging for mushrooms, an edible gardens landscaping business, a book by a local urban homesteader in Oakland (Farm City), and an upcoming class on Sat, 6/12 in SF on how to grow your own shiitake mushroom log at home (I wish we could go!). 
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