News & Features

It took farmers a while to see organic food as an opportunity rather than a challenge. Are they better prepared for the �locavores�?

According to the Canadians who invented the term, true locavores try to eat only produce which has clocked as fewer than 100 food miles.

The lifestyle magazine Zest is challenging its readers to try the locavore diet for a day a week, or month. They have said that �Organic may well have been the buzzword of 2008 but �local� is set to be the hot topic for 2009.�

�Locavorism� looks at healthy eating and global warming issues as well as having sympathy for British jobs and British workers.

Mike Small a writer from Burntisland, Fife, started �The Fife Diet� which he states �involves giving up the Martini foods - anything, anytime and anywhere. You can�t have pineapple in January, for example.� Choosing this option has helped him to get in touch with the seasons.

Products like tea and coffee cannot be grown locally, but these will still be allowed. Localism is not about being 100 per cent, but a way of supporting our farmers who could use some fair trade too.

Harrogate couple Kay and James Manby buy all their vegetables from River Swale Organic Vegetables, Newby Wiske, who run a home delivery service. They buy their meat from Elite Meat in Starbeck and their fish from Ramus Seafoods in Harrogate.

Supporting local businesses can be cost effective as you only buy what you need and what is in season, leaving out the extras that you would normally buy �on spec� from the supermarkets.

So be a �locavore� in 2009!