Edible Austin editor, Marla Camp
Where did the idea for this event originate, and who came up with it? Are any of the staff at Edible Austin cyclists?
We were brainstorming about how to have more events during Eat Local Week to allow more people to participate and involve more ways to introduce our community to local food. Since many of our urban farms are located in a bike-accessible area mostly on the east side of town, we thought we could both introduce people to the farms and local food shopping opportunities there as well as encourage good fitness and car-independence at the same time. We have an article about it in our Winter issue just out, called “Be a Pedal Pusher, ” by Robin Chotzinoff, a bike enthusiast and frequent contributor to the magazine. She writes about how biking to do your shopping is something we all can do, not just avid cyclists. We contacted the folks at Bicycle Sport Shop to help us produce the tour, since we have no experience at that sort of thing. They have done an outstanding job organizing the routes, coordinating the farm tours and helping us get the word out about it. And now I know what a “que” sheet is!
So we hope to inspire people to use their bikes for more than triathlons, fitness training and bike-a-thons, but to integrate biking into their everyday life. And food is a great connector for this because it’s something that we do every day!
Background: The purpose of our week-long Edible Austin Eat Local Week is is to raise awareness about our local food makers, growers, producers and to raise money for Urban Roots, a youth development program that uses sustainable agriculture as a way to transform the lives of youth and to increase the access of healthy food in Austin.
Have any particular thoughts on the intersection of local food and sustainable transport (or slow food and slow transport, if you’d rather think of it that way!)?
It makes tons of sense to think about how access and delivery of food affects a sustainable food system. Our food distribution is currently a huge energy sink when you calculate food miles and energy consumption. The Texas Department of Transportation did a study earlier this year called “Follow the French Fry: Food Miles and Roadway Damage” that addresses some aspects of this equation. We can make a difference as individuals by making healthy food choices by buying food grown close to home, and also by making healthy transportation choices when we go shopping. Cap Metro is creating maps for us for our Urban Farm Bicycle Tour participants that show how to get to all of our county-wide area urban farms by bus routes in addition to the bicycle routes that we’ll be providing people.
Do you think it’s possible to eat 100%, or near 100% local, in central Texas?
Absolutely. Central Texas is blessed with two long growing seasons that give us plenty of fresh vegetable and fruit options most of the year. And we have year-round access to local pastured meats, poultry, dairy and seafood too. (I consider the Gulf to be our “local” for seafood.) And read about a new local wheat (and oats) farmer who’s just started to bring his crops to market in our Winter issue. All we need to do is to adjust our expectations to what is available in any given season and work with that on our menus. You can find out what to expect and where to find it on our Resources section of our website. And with the growth of the hydroponic crops, we are able to have most anything we want most anytime. Learning the arts of pickling, preserving and freezing helps stretch foods across the “dry” times as well. Proof that we can do this is Jesse Griffiths, of Dai Due Supper Club fame. He’s built his entire alternative-restaurant business on serving only local foods at all of his dinners, which sell out within minutes of releasing the menus, all year long.
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