Alaska Box Veggie Program

Michael Pollan has a new book: In Defense of Food. Download the intriguing introduction and consider this possibility: Pollan suggests that we have become "...a nation of orthorexics: people with an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating." Despite our national obession with nutrition, we seem to be the fattest and sickest developed nation on the planet. Why? Perhaps because we eat unfood - food that is processed, packaged, "festooned with health claims," and sold to us relatively cheaply by what he calls a "Nutritional Industrial Complex."

But the book is more than the natural history of our new national eating disorder. Pollan says he has a set of suggestions - but you have to read beyond the intro (clever marketer that he is!). "I’m not interested in telling you what to have for dinner, "Pollan writes. "No, these suggestions are more like eating algorithms, mental devices for thinking through our food choices. "

I am willing to go out on a limb here and bet that one of those suggestions is to eat whole foods, grown locally. Sometimes here in Alaska, we have a hard time executing the second half of this choice; we have a hard time connecting with locally grown food. This is the issue discussed recently by Kim Sollien in her excellent blog AK Root Cellar. Kim questions the impact on local producers of the popular CSA organic produce distribution program, Full Circle Farm.

Full Circle Farm, Carnation, Washington, works with local growers to provide food for subscribers far and wide. It's a great service because people, not matter how remote, can access fresh, organically grown produce. But subscribers often buy from Full Circle even when locally grown produce is available, thus inadvertently undermining the possibility of helping locally produced, Alaskan grown, food become a sustainable, economically viable proposition.

Kim is floating the proposition of the development of an Alaskan Box veggie membership program as an alternative to the non-Alaskan veggies obtained through Full Circle Farms.

I want to hear from you if you would be interested in becoming members of an all Alaskan Box veggie program. Your voices in volume could pique producer interest generating the momentum needed to build producer partnerships willing to give it a try. Ultimately, it's the consumer voice and dollar that will motivate this idea into reality.

Get in touch with Kim through her blog adn.com/akrootcellar. Warning: you do have to go through a registration process before you can leave a comment, but it's worth it. According to Kim, Alaskans import nearly 98% of their food, collectively spending $2 billion, but only $30 million in Alaska (including hay). In as much as possible, I would like to stem the flow of wealth out of the state, wouldn't you?