The New Oxford American Dictionary has announced its 2007 Word of the Year: “Locavore.”
Four women in San Francisco — urging a diet of food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius of the city — coined the word about two years ago, according to the Oxford University Press blog, where you can find last year’s winner, carbon neutral, defined.
“There’s no reason to ship in apples from New Zealand when we grow them in Sebastopol. That’s just crazy,” Jessica Prentice, co-founder of the “locavores,” told San Francisco magazine.
Eat-local movements have emerged around the country since then, including Snohomish County, where farmers markets are booming and the Eat Local Thanksgiving 2007 challenge is going strong with more 2,000 people taking a pledge to include one local food in their Thanksgiving feast.
Other locavore experiments have resulted in some very interesting books, including “Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally” and “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life” by Barbara Kingslover.
Does eating locally and a reduction in “food miles” actually affect global warming? Well, yes and no, it turns out, according to a story from Reuters.
But in the end, isn’t it more about getting to know local growers, eating with the seasons (when you can) and knowing where you food comes from and just appreciating the miracle of plants a little bit more?
Answer: Yes.
Pop culture bonus: I’ve always adored “30 Rock” on NBC. But last week I fell in love with the show just a little bit more thanks to the “Greenzo” episode in which David Schwimmer plays an over-zealous green-living-loving mascot in full green garb. Hilarious. Really. Amazon is selling the episode for 99 cents and I’ll bet iTunes is too.
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