Have you ever calculated how many miles are in your dinner? It's fun and a little surprising!
Local Food Challenge – Part 2
Have you ever stopped to think about how far your food has traveled to get to your plate? We often talk about eating local, but how local are our meals really? This month’s challenge in the Local Food Challenge is a hands-on experiment that will open your eyes to the miles hidden in your dinner. Trust me; this exercise is a game-changer.
The Experiment: A Meal Audit
Here’s the challenge: Pick a meal—any meal you enjoy making—and count the miles for each ingredient from its source to your kitchen. It sounds simple, but I promise you, the results can be shocking.
When I first did this, I was confident my meal would be an inspiring example of how to cook a local meal. I chose a hearty beef stew, made with beef from a trusted farm near me, seasonal vegetables from a local farmers’ market, and homemade stock. I was sure I had this in the bag. Boy, was I wrong!
But then I started tallying up the miles:
Beef: 32.6 miles
Flour: 114 miles
Potatoes: 21.2 miles
Garlic: 320 feet (a win!)
Onion: 21.1 miles
Bone Broth: 15.2 miles
So far, so good, right? But then came the other ingredients:
Spanish Olive Oil: 3,574 miles
Carrots: 2,795.5 miles
Bay Leaves (from Greece!): 4,890 miles
Salt: 3,454 miles
By the time I was done, my “local” beef stew had racked up a staggering 17,904.06 miles—and that was just as-the-crow-flies distances, not even accounting for distribution routes. Yikes!
Check out this related blog post: How Far Is Local When It Comes to Your Food?
Why Does This Matter?
This challenge isn’t about making you feel bad about your food choices. It’s about awareness. Once you see the numbers, you start to ask questions: Can I source this closer to home? Are there small shifts I can make to reduce my food miles?
And guess what? In many cases, the answer is yes. Maybe I can swap out those long-haul carrots for ones grown at a nearby farm. Maybe I can experiment with growing bay leaves myself (which, by the way, is totally possible). The goal isn’t perfection—it’s progress.
There's more to WHY, of course. We covered this in the previous post (one of 12 monthly posts for The Local Food Challenge). Check it out HERE.
How to Do Your Own Meal Audit
Ready to give it a try? Here’s how:
Pick a meal – Choose something you cook regularly.
List your ingredients – Write them all down.
Find the origins – Check packaging, labels, and online sources to estimate how far each ingredient has traveled. Use Google maps to get the general miles from your house to the source of your food.
Do the math – Add up the total miles.
Reflect – What surprised you? What can you source closer to home?
A 100-Mile Meal Mindset
A good guideline is to source your main ingredients—proteins, vegetables, grains—from within 100 miles when possible. Once you find a source for eggs, for example, your work is done and you can become a regular. It's usually finding that precious source the first time, and that is the biggest hurdle to overcome.
Here is a good way to get started. Check out this blog post. All you need is Google. And you don't even have to leave home to take that first step!
Of course, some ingredients will always come from farther away (hello, coffee and chocolate). The point isn’t to eliminate all non-local ingredients but to be intentional about where you can make better choices.
The Top 5 Barriers to Eating Local
Understanding the obstacles to eating local can actually help us overcome them. Here are the most common barriers:
Cost – Local food can sometimes be more expensive (at the cash register, but I would assert that a deeper cost benefit analysis would show that the local items are less expensive when you consider all the factors) than mass-produced alternatives. However, shopping at farmers' markets, joining a CSA, buying in bulk (hello freezer!), and eating seasonally can help reduce costs.
Convenience – Supermarkets provide a one-stop shopping experience, whereas sourcing local food often requires visiting multiple locations. Planning ahead and finding a local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program can make things easier.
Availability – Depending on where you live, local options may be limited, especially in winter months. Learning about food preservation methods, like canning and freezing, can help extend the local harvest.
Lack of Awareness – Many people don’t realize how much food is available locally. Connecting with local farmers and following farm directories or online marketplaces can help. Again, it's the first step that's the biggest effort.
Habit – We’re used to buying certain products without thinking about where they come from. Being mindful of your choices and gradually replacing long-distance ingredients with local alternatives can create new habits over time.
More Local News!
Every month, The Local Food Challenge features a blog, some social media content (like shares from you and from me too), a letter with tips and worksheets, and a new podcast episode on One Bite is Everything. Here is a playlist of all the Local Food Challenge episodes for your convenience.
Share Your Results!
I’d love to hear how your meal audit goes! As you can see, I love an epic FAIL. But if you scored really well on your miles, I totally want to celebrate you (and copy you)!
Share your results with me on Instagram @xoxofarmgirl or email me at dana@forfarmersmovement.com. For more tips and encouragement throughout the year, make sure you're signed up for the challenge at thelocalfoodchallenge.com.
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Dana DiPrima is the founder of the For Farmers Movement. For Farmers supports American farmers by sharing their stories, replacing myths with facts, and providing them with grants and other helpful resources. Dana is the host of One Bite is Everything, the podcast that connects every bite you take to the bigger world, sparking curiosity and inspiring you to ask more questions about the food on your plate. She authors a weekly letter in addition to this blog. You can subscribe here. And you can join the For Farmers Movement to support your farmers here. You can also follow her on Instagram.
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