The Local Food Challenge (pt. 1)

In the course of doing research about local vs. imported food, I have come across some pretty surprising information. For example, according to The Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-489202/The-deadly-imports-How-worried-food-overseas.html) imported fruits and vegetables have higher risk of being contaminated with pesticides, meats have a higher chance of being contaminated (including by a drug-resistant strain of E-coli), and several shipments of South-East Asian prawns have been found to be contaminated with nitrofuran residue.

My main goal in these blog posts is not to try to sway anyone in one direction or another, but to simply provide information and allow people to decide for themselves. In accordance with this I, myself, am faced with decisions to make based on my own findings.

I have decided, then, to take a "local food challenge" for the next five weeks. During this time, I will only eat foods that are from Oregon, and as close to the Beaverton/Portland area as possible. I am already a vegetarian, so meat buying wont come into play, although I will find out what choices are available to local meat buyers.

In the next few weeks I hope to share my research, findings, trials and tribulations so that I and people like me can make the appropriate food decisions for ourselves and our families.

Wish me luck!