Best food is grown near home

Little things add up to create an underlying truth. If you buy locally, you help the planet and yourself.
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
The eggs in the shopping bag at Farm in the City in Minneapolis came from free-range chickens raised in West Concord, Minn. And that was just the first leg of their journey. Trish Hannah had bought them at the Midtown Global Market, where they were sold by farmers Lori and Alan Callister. Their final destination was a cooking class at the Brian Coyle Community Center, where Hannah teaches the preparation of healthful meals to middle-schoolers of Somali and Ethiopian background, as well as others.
The Callisters' eggs may cost more than the supermarket variety, but Hannah says they taste better, are better for the environment and, most important, she wants to support regional farmers.
For people who want food choices to reflect their values, more options than ever make it easier, as do the resources to learn about them. Traditional supermarkets have expanded their stock of organic, local and sustainably produced foods, which have been available for years at food co-ops, farmers' markets, community-supported-agriculture farms (CSAs) and shops such as the Minneapolis Farm in the City, which carries meat, dairy products and other foods from more than a dozen local farmers and producers.
Sharing the crop
Thursday is delivery day for farmer Tim Herrmann of Blackberry Community Farm in Wheeler, Wis. Shareholders in his CSA include Yoji Shimizu of Edina and Kenny Earl of Minneapolis, who pick up their weekly boxes of fresh produce at the Seward Co-op in Minneapolis.
CSA shareholders buy a portion of a farmer's crop early in the spring; the advantage to the farmer is to get upfront money; for the consumer, the benefit is a weekly supply of fresh-as-can-be produce.
What Herrmann brings each week to shareholders changes with the season, but current offerings include fresh greens, raspberries, turnips, cucumbers, peas, herbs, even a few edible flowers. The strawberry crop did poorly, so a basket of red currants is offered as a substitute. Later in the season, Herrmann will have sweet corn, tomatoes and melons, with potatoes, winter squash and root crops arriving at the end of the growing season.
The connection
Herrmann has a mission that goes beyond growing healthful food: He wants to connect consumers to the farm, the land and the seasons. His food deliveries are accompanied by notes and newsletters, and customers who want to know more can come to the farm to share a meal or help with the harvest.
"I like to support sustainable agriculture," said Shimizu, a professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School and a CSA member. "I think it's a good value and the produce is fantastic. It's been fun, and you get a better appreciation of the growing cycle."
The Seward Co-op sells many of the same vegetables, but manager Valerie Doying says they don't think of Herrmann as competition: "Supporting farmers is part of our mission," she said.
Sustainability
At the Midtown Farmers Market, Zelabou Mamah, wearing the colorful fabrics of her native Togo, shops for vegetables with 8-month-old daughter Ilham on her hip. She likes the prices, and says the open-air market is like the markets back home. Her purchase is small, but it fulfills the Midtown Market's mission statement: to "increase the economic, and social vitality, livability and sustainability of the Midtown area of south Minneapolis. ..."
Several new books focus on the ethical significance of our food choices.
"Angry Trout Cafe Notebook: Friends, Recipes and the Culture of Sustainability," by George Wilkes (Northwind Sailing, $26.95). A thoughtful book about the challenges of putting the values of sustainability into practice at a restaurant on Minnesota's North Shore, with recipes.
"The Ethical Gourmet: How to Enjoy Great Food That Is Humanely Raised, Sustainable, Nonendangered and That Replenishes the Earth," by Jay Weinstein (Broadway Books, $18.95). The title (nearly) says it all. Weinstein, a professional chef with a journalism degree, gives a good overview of the ethics and politics of food, interspersed with essays on how to make an ethical brown stock (without veal) to the moral status of foie gras, plus more than 100 recipes "to savor with a clear conscience."
"Farmer John's Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables," by Farmer John Peterson and Angelic Organics (Gibbs Smith, $29.95). Peterson, featured in the film "The Real Dirt on Farmer John," explains organics and biodynamics, and offers a collection of more than 200 recipes, organized by vegetable, for every season of the year.
"The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals," by Michael Pollan (Penguin Press, $26.95). This traces four typical meals to their sources: an industrial food meal from McDonald's, an "industrial organic" meal from Whole Foods, a meal of foods from small-scale sustainable producers, and a meal of hunted and foraged foods. In the process, Pollan questions the morality and sustainability of American ways of eating.
"The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter," by Peter Singer and Jim Mason (Rodale Press, $25.95). Singer and Mason take a close look at three families with different diets: standard American, conscientious carnivore and vegan. They track the foods to their sources, and take an unblinking look at the meat, milk and egg factories that produce much of the American diet.