Kat with a K

Defining My Terms

As part of my new experiment in eating locally, I am planning to post pictures of my groceries as I buy them, sort of inspired by Hungry Planet, which has fascinating photo essays of families from around the world and their food for a typical week. With each picture, I will list the foods, in the following categories. (And the order given here is roughly my order of preference when shopping.)

Local: Main ingredients are grown within about 100 miles of me. I'm not going to go crazy worrying about where minor ingredients (like the salt in butter, say, or the packaging materials) are from.

Almost Local: Like local, but from a larger area - all of New England, and maybe some of the closer parts of New York state.

Semi-Local: Packaged and distributed by a local company, but the ingredients aren't necessarily local. (For example, Will 'n Rose's is a local company that sells great grains, but their grains aren't actually grown here. Because no grain is grown here.) I figure this is still better than non-local, because there's less movement of the food, and it supports local businesses.

Organic: Things that are labeled that way, more or less.

Natural: Again, things that are labeled that way.

Unprocessed: Not necessarily organic or natural, but at least a "whole" food - most produce would fall into this category.

Processed: Pretty much everything else. :)

And again, these are just the categories in my head. I am by no means saying that anyone else should use them, or that anyone else should prioritize the way I do.