I wish I could report a more thrilling ending to my week of being a localvore but to be honest, it was most interesting at its beginnings. Last night I ended up making pizza and then cutting my challenge off there. As much as I would have loved to make the full 7 days, there were a few things that were becoming an issue:
- Money - This week I ended up spending $50 on groceries, as compared to my normal $25-30 each week. Now, I understand that I could have spent less if I had more carefully planned out my meals and used mainly fruits and vegetables as the main ingredients for every meal, but the concept of a local challenge really made me want to make some regular meals that I normally do but with all 100% local ingredients.
- Variety - Nutrition aside, I’ll admit I was having a little trouble with variety. It’s been about 6 months since I became a vegan now, and in that type I’ve really expanded my cooking abilities and creative preparation to a pretty big spread, and cutting it down to only locally available ingredients definitely threw me off a little bit. I imagine that if I were to do something like this again, learning ahead of time about raw food recipes would have helped, because so many complete meals can be made almost entirely of veggies and nuts, two things I could get local.
- Nutrition - Unfortunately one of my most important sources of protein I can’t find locally. Beans, lentils and legumes are one of those things that vegans need to have in their daily diet to provide not just protein but also for keeping up iron levels. Somebody has got to produce beans in Vermont, but I have been unable to find any so far.
Anyways, it’s been a good experience. But I did very much enjoy some peanut butter this morning with breakfast 