Eat local for a week: the veggies are here!

The state’s Alaska Grown program will host its Eat Local Challenge 2010 Sunday through Saturday, Aug. 22-28. This year, the Alaska Center for the Environment has joined Alaska Grown as a sponsor as part of the center’s local foods and sustainable communities program.

Alaskans have many ways to eat local, from veggies they grow in their own gardens or buy from Alaska farmers, berries they pick, fish they catch, game meat they hunt, seaweed and other beach greens they gather, etc. The benefit of eating local food is it’s fresher so it tastes better and has more nutrients, and you cut out the thousands of miles of transportation costs needed to ship food from the Lower 48 and other countries to Alaska. Growing local food makes a community more sustainable.

During the week of Aug. 22-28, Alaska residents are encouraged to:

• Try eating at least one home-cooked meal this week, made of mostly local ingredients.
• Try to incorporate at least one never-before-used local ingredient into a meal.
• Try “brown-bagging” at least one meal this week made primarily of local ingredients.
• Try talking to at least one local food retailer and one food producer about local food options.
• Try to choose local food products whenever possible.

(Reprinted from the Sitka Local Foods Network.)

Good sources for local foods in Fairbanks are the Tanana Valley Farmers' Market, open Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. or the Ester Community Market, Thursdays from 4 30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Ester Park. Calypso Farm operates five farm stands at local schools and FFA produce is sold at Pike's Waterfront Lodge greenhouse.