EAT LOCAL CHALLENGE- My Food List for September

Learn and keep up with the ideas of eating local at: EatLocalChallenge.com

This is how I participated in the 2007 Challenge:

SEPTEMBER 2007

I've decided to keep a list of the locally grown foods that I find and consume each day. Rest assured that I do eat and drink more than is listed here but this is just an exercise to see what's available on the Big Island and how creative I can get to replace those things that must be flown or shipped here. Blue letter days will mean that my entire day's consumption consisted of locally grown foods. My wish list will be in orange.

Most of the time, I eat fruits and veggies only. I rarely buy dairy, egg or gluten products anymore. I'll eat wild salmon when I can find it or some locally caught fish. Nothing is absolutely off my list, I just eat the foods that make me happy during and after a meal.

1-Saturday. Mixed salad greens, avocado, purple sweet potatoes, soy beans. I need a replacement for the chai tea and soy milk that I drink in the mornings.

2-Sunday. Mango, mixed salad greens, daikon, green onions, mixed sprouted beans and peas, ahi sashimi.

3-Monday. Mango, oranges, raw macadamia nut milk (made it myself to replace soy milk), local salad greens, spinach, tatsoi, Okinawan sweet potatoes, cucumbers,tomatoes, green and purple onions. Our treat for the day? We were mentioned on the Eat Local Challenge website: http://www.eatlocalchallenge.com/2007/09/elc-blog-high-1.html

4-Tuesday. I'm out of mangoes!!! One banana, local salad greens, mixed sprouted beans and peas, spinach, tatsoi, Okinawan sweet potatoes, cucumbers,tomatoes, green and purple onions. I ate pretty low on the food chain today and all I could find at my local health food store was a mango, a papaya and some tangerines. I may have to go south to find some fruit stands.

5- Wednesday.  Shiitake mushrooms from Hamakua Heritage, mustard cabbage and tatsoi, all sauteed in garlic and served as a bed for a piece of salmon from who-knows-where. I was out for most of the day, taught a yoga class, did some massages, etc. and all I remember eating was a Lara Bar!

6- Thursday. A mediocre mango, watermelon, and platefuls of salad greens. I cooked up a pot of okra broth which the produce man assured me is grown on the island! I drink the clear broth to keep my muscles and joints well lubricated as prescribed by my yoga teacher. E-mail me if you'd like more info on the okra soup.

7- Friday. This just might qualify as a Blue Letter Day, everything I ate was grown locally. Tangerines, green salad with Kona grown tomatoes and cucumber, local caught Ono, and I used the last of the tatsoi and spinach by cooking it in a Thai curry sauce using my raw macadamia nut milk. Not to mention drinking a cup of my okra soup earlier in the day. It can be done!

8- Saturday. I found some sweet mangoes at the Farmers Market today, ate a banana and a huge salad made entirely of local veggies. I did go out to brunch with my friend Vicki after yoga class, and can only hope that my piece of mahimahi was caught off the Kona Coast.

9- Sunday. A fruitful morning as I stayed indoors to write my weekly newsletter: a mango, a whole papaya with the juice of a lime picked right outside my front door. Later in the day I had a tangerine and some purple sweet potato that I cooked after drinking my okra broth. I had dinner at the Manago Hotel with my parents and had some fresh, local ahi.

10- Monday. A mango and banana salad for lunch followed later by local greens topped with half an avocado, chopped cilantro and chopped sweet potatoes for dinner. I haven't mentioned that I add a couple of teaspoons of raw sesame seeds to my salads for calcium, because I doubt that it's a local product, but it's still a good addition.

11- Tuesday. It's obvious that I am addicted to mangoes, despite the fact that it's not on the list of approved foods for the Type A+ blood type that I am. I eat them with a broad smile so they can't be that bad for me! Mangoes and bananas by day, cooked local green beans (sauteed with garlic and olive oil) along with a dinner plateful of local greens for dinner made up my Tuesday intake.

12- Wednesday. A fruit salad of mangoes (ahem!), bananas and strawberries (organic but frozen) for the day. Dinner consisted of organic basmati rice (grown off island), tofu topped with chopped mustard cabbage kim chee (both made locally and craved by my Asian genes), local green salad with half of an avocado.

13- Thursday. A predictable fruit salad (mangoes and bananas) during the day, followed by a dinner (this was different) of brown rice penne pasta (off-island origin), with a sauce made of tomatoes from Honda Farms and a basil pesto from Manuka Farms, next to a plate of their local greens and the other half of the avocado. Mmmmmm.

14- Friday. You guessed it: mangoes and bananas by day! A super salad of local greens and locally made tofu, by night.

15- Saturday. Ho-hum and if it's not another day of mangoes and bananas! I promise a change by tomorrow. My dinner was cooked: Hamakua grown Alii Oyster mushrooms, beansprouts and parsley sauteed in garlic and olive oil. My organic brown rice was flown in, first class, I'm sure.

16- Sunday. Nearly half of a watermelon by day! Ahi sashimi, a local green salad and purple sweet potato for dinner prepared by my mom. My menu hasn't strayed.

17- Monday. The rest of the watermelon by day and a local green salad that overflowed my dinner plate, sprinkled with soy beans and sweet potatoes.

18-Tuesday. Two halves of a papaya from Kapoho with sliced bananas and lime juice for breakfast. A local green salad balanced with pasta topped with a sauce made from Hamakua Springs Cocktail Tomatoes and a cilantro pesto from Manuka Farms.

19- Wednesday. More papaya, lime juice and bananas by day followed by a green salad and wild salmon for dinner.

20- Thursday. A single solitary banana for breakfast and a tofu dinner. I spent the whole day away from the campsite. This entire process of listing my food consumption, and only the local stuff at that, has been quite enlightening....food for thought? :)

21- Friday. Papaya with lime juice (lots of it, I have to have it or I won't eat a papaya) and watermelon by day. A great big green salad with lots of red onion slices and chopped cilantro along side a piece of ahi. Tomorrow is market day!!

22- Saturday. I got my shopping fix in the morning along with a brownie from one of the vendors at the Keauhou Farmers Market. I had a papaya, and my okra broth a bit later and left home early to see Los Lonely Boys in concert at the Hilton Waikoloa. Food was not on my mind.

23- Sunday. Now today I'm hungry. Music's still thumping in my veins but I have some mango to soothe me, a papaya with lime juice (must have), local green salad, Honda Farms tomatoes and cucumbers and some delicious ahi belly prepared by my mom.

24- Monday. By day: mangoes and bananas. Nightfall: Two small pieces of ono sprinkled with garlic salt and freshly ground pepper, fried and slathered with a mild arugula pesto from Manuka Farms, plus a big green salad with Honda Farms tomatoes. Yum-me!

25- Tuesday. A huge, half ripe papaya, lime juice and 2 apple bananas plus a tangerine by day. A huge plate of green salad along side 2 Maui Taro burgers. I like the idea/contents/purity of the burgers but it needs help in the taste department. I would chop some garlic and flavor a bit of olive oil before heating the burgers, next time.

26- Wednesday. Unprepared does not mean I ate raw. It means I left home with no food, but with good intentions of returning to eat in between teaching a yoga class and giving a few massages. I ended up at the studio all day with only one Lara Bar to my name! Ravenous, I ended up eating at the Royal Thai Cafe in the Keauhou Shopping Center. I cannot attest to the origins of my seafood curry's ingredients, just that it tasted sooooo good.

27- Thursday. I finally gave in to the craving I developed when I mentioned the fish tacos at O's Bistro in a post a few days ago. That was my brunch. Dinner consisted of a large green salad with an avocado brought to the studio by one of our clients. Folks often do that when they have more avos, papayas, limes, lilikois, etc. than they are able to consume. We set it out and everyone helps themselves. We also do that with books, come to think of it.

28- Friday. I made a fruit smoothie out of the juices and fruits left in my refer for the daytime. I got a small block of ahi, dusted it evenly with some prepared cajun spices and seared it in hot olive oil. Dipped in some nama shoyu and wasabi paste, it was perfect with a big Local-Greens salad. (More ways than one for Blackened Tuna).

29- Saturday. Ate brunch out and had grilled mahimahi at U-Top-It with Vicki. Same place, same order, same friend as on the 8th. This time I did find out that the mahi was caught locally. Dinner consisted of a plate of local greens (would you expect anything else?) and some imported organic brown rice and wild Alaskan salmon, something that I may never find locally, unless I migrate.

30-Sunday. A pitcher of L/O Fruit Smoothie all day. L/O as in left over from the week. Local foods for dinner: gobo (burdock root), pumpkin, and fried eggplant.

That's all folks! There's so much more grown on the Big Island. You can get grass fed beef, eggs, chicken, milk, pork and all the fishes in the deep blue sea ,if we so choose. We are blessed.