Local Food Shift Magazine

We have a new magazine on the horizon for lovers of local food in Colorado. Check out Local Food Shift, expected to launch May 1st. I don't know anything other than what they have on the website, but a magazine promoting local food production and consumption (the even better part) is looking good to me.

Boulder Farmers' Market Today

There's less than half an hour until the start of this afternoon's Boulder Farmers' Market downtown. You can read about the vendors, check out a list of this week's produce, and even see a little mention of this humble blog in this week's newsletter from the market. Help the 10% food shift by buying local, including at the Farmers' Market. It will be fresher and most likely taste better, even if you're not concerned about food origins.

Pledge To Buy Local

Our wonderful Boulder County Farmers' Markets have a worthy new initiative to encourage folks to buy more of their food from local producers, the 10% local food shift pledge. Since I'm a great fan of our Farmers' Market, our local farm stands, and even the Pearl Street Whole Foods store, which greets you with a display of local produce identified by farm, I was shocked to read that less than 1% of the nearly one billion spent on food each year in Boulder County goes to food that's produced here. Shifting our mindsets to more local spending would be a great help to those producers out there who are working so hard to bring us these great local options. Here's part of the Farmers' Markets' press release:

"By going to http://www.localfoodshift.com/, Boulder County residents can put their money where their mouth is, and pledge to spend ten percent of their food budgets with local sources. The money shifted to the local economy will be tracked to demonstrate the economic impact of food localization...

The web-based system will track how many people take the pledge, displaying total dollars that are shifted to locally-grown and locally-produced food. The website will ultimately provide an interactive environment where eaters can learn where to buy local foods and how they can change their food-buying habits.

The system includes a mobile iPhone app, which allows visitors to take photos of what's fresh at the Boulder and Longmont farmers’ markets. They can then automatically upload their food finds along with information about sourcing, thus alerting others in real time to seasonal farm-fresh produce as it arrives at the markets."

Wow, how cool is that?