"locally grown" news and stories

Keeping track of what foods are in season at different times of the year can be difficult. For those who live in the San Francisco Bay Area, finding in-season, locally grown foods just god a little bit easier. The Local Foods Wheel is a bright, 12-inch wheel that rotates, revealing all the foods that are seasonally available. The front of the wheel indicates the produce that is available year round. The back of the wheel has a full seasonality reference, including a listing of the precise seasons a given product is available and a list of some of the more obscure foods that don't have icons on the wheel itself. Take the wheel shopping with you, or just use it as a reference when you're making your grocery list at home.

The wheel is $11.95 and can be purchased online, as well as at the Berkeley farmer's market and several other Bay Area locations.

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There are so many food issues to think about when you hit the market to do grocery shopping.  Store brand versus national brand. Sale versus regular. Organic vs conventional. Locally grown vs imported. Every company is promoting at least one thing (sometimes all things) at a time.With organics going mainstream, and organic farms getting larger and more efficient/industrial, more community and eco-conscious people are turning towards supporting local growers and patronizing farmers markets, rather than blindly opting for organics of unknown origin.

Following this trend and keeping itself ahead of the curve, Whole Foods has just pledged to spend an additional $10 million each year to further support locally grown foods. John Mackey one of the co-founders of Whole Foods said that some stores "would use parts of their parking lots on Sundays to host open-air markets for nearby farms and [all] would redouble efforts to buy from local producers."

The question is, will this move encourage you to shop at Whole Foods, knowing that you are more likely to be supporting local growers/producers that you might not otherwise have access to?

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