In 2005, a group of culinary adventurers living in San Francisco decided to throw down the gauntlet to see if they could satisfy their diverse taste and dietary requirements by eating within 100 miles of their home.
By 2007, Locavore was the Word of the Year in the Oxford American Dictionary.
The locavore movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers markets or even to grow or pick their own food, arguing that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locavores try to avoid shopping at the supermarket, believing that much of the food for sale has been shipped over long distances requiring more fuel for transportation. Many foods are irradiated to preserve them during transportation and lengthen their shelf-life, however irradiation has been found to destroy vitamins and other nutrients.
“The word locavore shows how food-lovers can enjoy what they eat while still appreciating the impact they have on the environment,” said Ben Zimmer, editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press. It’s significant in that it brings together eating and ecology in a new way.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, about 2.5 million Australian households (about 35%) grow some of their own fruit and vegetables. This is estimated to be about 110,000 tonnes of fruit and about 153,000 tonnes of vegetables a year. About 80,000 Australian households have poultry that produce around 2,000 tonnes of meat and more than 26 million dozen eggs.
Locals in Jervis Bay, South Australia were initially puzzled when owner Belinda Jenkins and Barbara Farelly opened their Locavore restaurant. Now Belinda and Barbara are part of the increasingly popular movement to know where our food has come from, and how it was grown. The owners are helping to educate the public to think about the benefits of eating local, organic or fair trade produce.
In the Adelaide hills of South Australia a summer locavore can sample delights such as Kangaroo Island cheeses, Coorong Angus beef fillet, local apples and rhubarb, Paris Creek Bio Dynamic butter, organic wine from Langhorne Creek or goats curd from Woodside. It’s possible to build a complete diet around eating locally, says Chris Mack, owner of The Locavore restaurant in Stirling, South Australia.
Chris has clarified his philosophy on how he sources his produce: if not local; eat family-farmed; if not family-farmed, eat organic; if not organic, eat fair trade. The idea is to run our business as sustainably as we can and look after the earth that looks after us… this way, we can continue to enjoy all the wonderful things it has to offer.