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edibleTrout Creek

The local food movement is an idea that has been gaining more supporters who want to try to solely or primarily eat foods that come from close to their home. This idea has recently become almost a national craze and has even resulted in the creation of a new word in the English language. The term “locavore” was coined by four women in San Francisco who in 2005 decided to try to eat within a 100 mile radius of their home (Maiser, Prentice, Sampson, Van Wing, 2008). The Oxford Dictionary named “locavore” the 2007 word of the year and defines it as “a person whose diet consists only or principally of locally grown or produced food” (Oxford University Press, 2008). For a food to qualify as local, it has to be grown, processed, and sold within a reasonable proximity to the consumer’s home — this is generally defined as 100-200 miles (100 Mile Diet, 2008; Bon AppŽtit, 2008), the nearest six counties or within the state or closest two states (Rothboeck, Per. Comm.). Ideally, the businesses involved in those steps are also locally owned. The concern with eating locally is whether or not it is viable for the majority of the population in terms of price, time and effort, and the quality, quantity and nutritional diversity of the food available.

There are all manner of different reasons that a growing number of people are choosing to eat locally. Doing so can be a giant step in reducing one’s carbon footprint by cutting out the fossil fuels required to ship food from around the world. “Going local” also supports local farmers and businesses and helps to develop more close-knit communities with strong personal relationships. Those who have experimented with or committed to eating locally speak and write about how much more satisfying their food has become for them, as well as the friendships they have developed as a product of their new diet (Kingsolver, 2007).

There is also significant evidence that eating locally is more nutritious. In-season produce is much fresher when it reaches the consumer’s door, and flash freezing it for preservation when it is at its peak ripeness is still far healthier than produce that was picked long before it was ripe in order to be ripe when it arrives at a supermarket after thousands of miles of travel. The same concept applies for meat as well. Meat that is butchered closer to home is fresher than meat that has been slaughtered and shipped from far away (Chambers, Per. Comm.).

When consumers are in direct or close contact with the farmers, processors and distributors of their food, they have more power to encourage safe and responsible growing and handling practices that are free of pesticides, herbicides and insecticides, artificial hormones, and the injection of chemicals into meat. They can also influence the conditions of workers in the fields and in the industry (Pollan, 2007).

At first glance, Trout Creek, Montana in Sanders County seems an unlikely place to be able to eat locally. The growing conditions, though reasonable, are still a far cry from ideal. The high elevation and northern location make for cold winters, while the summers are very hot and extremely dry. Trout Creek averages just over four inches of precipitation from July through September, the growing months prior to harvest (NOAA, 2000). Western Sanders County is also a very rural community; the people, though well-connected, are relatively few and far between. This makes the local food movement there even less commercially viable than in more populated areas. Furthermore, the area immediately surrounding Trout Creek is not particularly agricultural, making it even harder to supply one’s entire diet year-round with apt consideration to nutrition.

After looking a little deeper, however, I realized that eating locally from the northwest corner of Montana is a fully viable endeavor. Flathead Lake, and the agriculturally prime region surrounding it, is within 60 miles of Trout Creek. Its lake effect keeps the climate milder and the soil in the area is extremely fertile — full of silt that settled during the years of the Glacial Lake Missoula buildups. The region surrounding the lake is rich in the production of produce, especially fruits. It is one of the few regions in the area near western Sanders County that can really effectively grow apples, cherries, peaches, plums, and pears, as well as several varieties of nuts. A considerable amount of the produce from this area is sold at roadside stands, and most farmers are more than happy to sell to individuals or make you-pick arrangements. The Palouse, a high desert in eastern Washington and western Idaho, is also within 150-175 miles of Trout Creek. Farmers in The Palouse grow vast quantities of wheat and other grains that supply the nation. Whitman and Lincoln Counties alone produce over fifty million bushels of wheat (NASS, 2002). Shepherd’s Grain locally processes some of this wheat into flour and sells to, among others, a store that distributes in Spokane, Wash., just over 80 miles from Trout Creek (Shepherd’s Grain, 2008). 125 miles in the other direction, Drummond, Montana — also wheat country — is particularly known for its cattle ranching.

Hunting accounts for a great deal of the meat consumed in northwest Montana. Many families obtain the vast majority of their meat from hunting, and although there have been no studies on the subject that I know of, I imagine hunted meat at least supplements the protein intake of the majority of families in rural northwest Montana. There are also 232 cattle ranches in Sanders County alone (NASS – 2002), many of which sell at least a percentage of their stock locally, butchered on the farm. Many of these ranches raise bison, as well, and also sell it pre-butchered directly to local consumers. There are a comparatively very high number of people who raise chickens and a milk cow, and arranging to buy or trade for milk, eggs and poultry after the chickens are slaughtered is very simple. My family’s eggs and milk travel only two miles from where they are gathered to where they are enjoyed. This same distributor supplies eggs and milk to at least a dozen families. Between hunting and the high number of meat, dairy and poultry products that are grown and sold locally between friends and neighbors, local sources of protein are not hard to come by in Trout Creek.

In northwest Montana, a large percentage of people have a garden that they use to supplement their store-bought produce or rely on for a main source of fruits and vegetables. Corn, peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, various leafy greens, root crops, pod plants, fruit trees, berries, herbs and squash grow well in the immediate area. The low population density and relatively low price of land make owning a large piece of property, with space for a large garden, feasible. Neighbors and friends who plant too much of a crop are also more than willing to share, though this accounts for a small portion of the overall available food.

The biggest barrier to eating locally in Trout Creek is the amount of time that it requires. No business grows or sells food specifically to try to fit into a locavore’s diet. Most of the crops that can be grown are grown in small quantities for personal use, with few commercial exceptions. If consumer demand were to increase, however, some of those who grow crops or raise animals for food may be able to increase production to supplement their income. As it is such a rural area, western Sanders County has nothing similar to the community supported agriculture (CSA) or community gardens that are becoming increasingly available in more urban areas. Personal gardens would have to supply a large proportion of the fruits and vegetables in a local diet in Trout Creek. Growing enough produce to feed oneself for a year would be a very time-consuming task, indeed, as would the processes of canning, freezing, drying and generally preserving the food to last through the winter and spring into the next growing season. Some of the meat could be bought locally, but having variety would mean that one would have to hunt a good portion of it, though this is widely considered recreation. The animal would then have to be butchered, which is either expensive or, again, time consuming. Finally, making meals would take longer without any pre-made or processed foods. Simply pouring a bowl of store-bought cereal in the morning would have to be replaced with frying local eggs and toasting local bread (that was made at home), spread with local butter (also made in the home from local cream) and homemade jam from berries that had to picked on multiple summer hiking trips.

Rusti and Tobo Leivestad, who sometimes call themselves the “Food Family,” have been eating as locally as is possible in Trout Creek since they moved there in 1991. Almost three fourths of their food is self-grown, self-hunted, self-gathered, or bought from local sources. Their fruits and vegetables are all grown in a massive garden 25 feet from their front door, and fertilized by the manure from their chickens, horses and llamas. Feeding themselves is a full-time proposition. Though they spend about half the money on food that a typical two person household in the area does, they estimate that for every hour another household spends preparing food, they spend ten. They trade pasture on their land in exchange for a full beef cow every other year. They hunt, raise chickens for eggs and are supplied with milk — used to make butter, sour cream and yogurt, as well as for drinking — from the same cow that supplies my family. The couple retired young and have lots of time and energy. Their food is their hobby and passion, and defines much of the cycle of their lives. The two, one of whom is now over seventy years old, take no medications, a virtue that they attribute to their extremely wholesome diet that comes straight from the land (Leivestad, Per. Comm.).

But even Rusti and Tobo have to buy various commodities and dry goods like salts and sugars from a co-op that trucks them in. One of the big problems with a local diet in Trout Creek would be trying to buy main staples that were not only grown locally, but processed into usable form within a reasonable distance of Trout Creek. Flour would have to be bought from Shepherd’s Grain in Spokane — a 276-mile, 6-hour round trip. Most of the wheat from the Palouse and Drummond area gets shipped out to be ground down and made into flour, which is subsequently bagged, labeled by nationally recognized brands and shipped back to Trout Creek, 100 miles from where it was grown. It would be a large hurdle to go all the way to Spokane for flour, requiring, as is the common theme, much more time and planning. Further, driving for 6 hours for ingredients to make bread doesn’t fit in well with the idea that eating locally cuts down on carbon emissions. Other staples, as well as things like sugar, coffee, tea and wine, are simply not available locally. Corn — besides that grown in a personal garden — rice and other grains are not grown in large quantities in the Inland Northwest.

In the bigger picture of things, the biggest barrier to eating locally anywhere is the vast difference in the amount of time that it would consume (Rothboeck, Per. Comm.). There is not yet much ease in a locavore’s diet, because there’s not enough money in it to make it economically viable for many businesses — it’s still a niche market, so there haven’t been any huge efforts to try to capitalize on making it easier on the consumers (Kingsolver, 2007). As more and more people start eating locally, however, there will be enough money in the industry to start to make it worth the energy and capital of businesses to increase consumers’ ease and lessen the time required to be a true locavore.

Finding many of the main staples is also a typical concern among locavores everywhere, as growers of wheat, corn, rice and other grains typically sell to large processors who have central locations and distribute nationally or internationally. People who have tried or committed to eating locally have found it very difficult to find such necessary elements (Kingsolver, 2007). In particular, flour that is produced locally is extremely difficult to find, even in areas that grow a lot of grain (Rothboeck, Per. Comm.).

Eating primarily or entirely locally is a huge commitment. It requires a great amount of work to try to find all of the necessary foods and to investigate them to make sure that they’re truly local. Additionally, it takes much more time to prepare food, as highly processed, pre-made foods are simply unavailable. Year round produce from the grocery store is off-limits to locavores, as are frozen bags of pre-cooked vegetables. Preserving food for times when it’s not readily available fresh is also a huge time commitment.

However, the time requirements and lack of availability of certain foods can be circumvented. When someone decides to eat locally, they haven’t absolutely committed to strict rules. No one should be breathing down their neck, telling them what’s right and wrong to eat. An honest effort to stick to a local diet as much as possible is all that can really be asked of someone. It’s a choice to eat locally, so when it’s simply too inconvenient or particular parts of a diet are unavailable, no one is obligated to adhere to any regiment.

There are many reasons to eat locally. Carbon footprints can be drastically reduced without the need for fossil fuels to ship your food thousands of miles from source to plate. The connections that can be built while establishing where one’s food is coming from are unpricable. Invaluable, lasting friendships are inevitably developed as a direct result of being in closer contact with the people who are responsible for one’s sustenance. Furthermore, when paying for food, it is these people who receive the payment, rather than large multi-national corporations. This, in turn, gives the individual consumer more power to decide how his or her food can be obtained more sustainability and responsibly. Eating locally has also been proven to be more nutritious. Highly processed food is off the menu, and fresher meat and produce, even if they are being preserved for the winter, have more nutritional value. Finally, people who have switched to eating locally have come to appreciate the food they eat much more, taking comfort in having such an intimate role in such a vital part of one’s life as feeding oneself (Kingsolver, 2007). Eating locally takes a great deal of commitment, however. A full fledged locavore who finds the payoff worth the effort, or an individual considering trying to eat locally, has an obvious choice, but it must be noted that it is a lot more work to provide oneself with food. Not everyone wants to put so much time and energy into simply sustaining oneself.

Eating locally in Trout Creek, Montana is almost entirely viable for someone willing to dedicate an enormous amount of time to doing so. Instead of CSAs and community gardens, we have the option to hunt our own meat, grow our produce in our own gardens, and gather berries, mushrooms and pine nuts in our mountains. However, this means that much of the produce would have to be planted, tended, harvested, preserved and of course prepared by the individual. Much of the meat would require the same. Any hunted meat would have to be prepared entirely by the consumer, who would have to at least partly prepare even much of the purchased poultry. Venison, huckleberries, morels and homebaked bread from Palouse-grown wheat spread with homemade butter certainly provide a bounty of flavor; however, the infrastructure and connections for eating local in northwest Montana simply haven’t been established for the consumer’s ease. Becoming a locavore is possible for someone with a great deal of time, commitment, and enthusiasm for the effort, but eating locally is more something to strive for. Some produce, most meat, and things like eggs and milk can easily be bought, grown, or hunted locally, but a diet consisting solely of local foods is still mostly unrealistic for the majority of the people and families in Trout Creek.

Works Cited

• 100 Mile Diet. 2008. About. Accessed 2 December 2008.
• Bon Appétit Management Company. 2008. Eat Local Challenge. Accessed 2 December 2008.
• Chambers, Kimberlee. 12 November 2008. Personal Communication.
• Kingsolver, Barbara. 2007. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. New York, NY: Harpercollins Publishers.
• Leivestad, Rusti and Leivestad, Tobo. 21 November 2008: Personal Communication.
• Maiser, Jennifer; Prentice, Jessica; Sampson, DeDe; and Van Wing, Sage. Locavores. 2008. Accessed 20 November 2008.
• National Agricultural Statistics Service – United States Department of Agriculture (NASS). 2002. County Summary Highlights: 2002. Accessed 18 November 2008.
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 2000. 30 Year Normals for Trout Creek, MT. Accessed 17 November 2008.
• Oxford University Press. 2008. Locavore. Accessed 20 November 2008.
• Pollan, Michael. 2007. Omnivore’s Dilemma. Penguin Press.
• Rothboeck, Justin R. 31 October 2008: Personal Communication.
• Shepherd’s Grain. 2008. Our Products. Accessed 20 November 2008.