I was planning on writing a post about my culinary adventures this past weekend in Chicago (that’s, right, back again).  But of course, as these things seem to be working out, my post changed promptly after reading the cover article of this week’s Time magazine.  For those of you out who are familiar with the topic of cheap food, this article is nothing exciting.  I have read Pollan’s books and various others, seen Food Inc…yada yada.  Nothing in this article really took me by surprise (if you aren’t familiar with the industrial food chain, check it out-it’s a good over view).  It did, however, get me thinking: what is the real cost of eating locally right here in NYC for 3 meals a day?

I try to buy produce that is local and seasonal for both price and moral reasons, but it doesn’t always work out.  At restaurants I don’t always ask the server where the (fill in the blank) came from, and I’m sure the greens in my salad from Just Salad are not from a local farm upstate.  I also recognize that certain local produce can be more expensive than conventional food grown half way across the world, and I can’t always afford to stick to my mission.  That said, I wanted to see what the actual cost of eating locally in New York would be for the week.  So, readers, I bring you this week’s challenge: eat all 3 meals a day with as many local products as possible for one week.  I am going to document my meals and provide all of the pricing information so we can all discover the actual price of eating locally right here on this little island of ours (and of course it’s outer boroughs).

There are some stipulations: I am not going to go crazy trying to find local olive oil or salt (is that possible?).  But I will try to make sure all herbs, produce, and proteins are local. I will break down the price per meal.  The Time article breaks it down by calories, but a few hundred calories of veggies doesn’t have as much meaning to me as a full meal.  Also, it is possible that local food can have a larger carbon footprint than eating food from far away, but unfortunately I don’t have the resources to calculate the fuel consumption of each item.  For the sake of this experiment, I am going to eat locally and leave it at that.

So, it begins tonight with an eggplant.  See you all next week.