Why local food matters
Did that apple you’re eating come from five miles down the road, or is it more well-traveled than you are? Reduce your carbon footprint and benefit your health by choosing local food.
Monthly Topic Overview
Why does choosing local food matter?
“Choosing local whenever in season and when possible, as often as possible, strengthens a community-based food system,” says Michelle Kenyon, director of Field to Family, an Iowa City-based nonprofit that works to create a healthy and sustainable local food system. “Community food systems enhance the health of our economy, environment, and our population.”
Let’s go in-depth with benefits:
- Choosing local food reduces transportation-associated greenhouse gas emissions.
- Significant greenhouse gas emissions are associated with food logistics. Most conventional food travels over 1,000 miles to get to us, the consumers. (To put that into perspective, that’s like driving to Boston from Iowa City.) Almost one-fifth of carbon emissions in the food system are from burning fossil fuels to transport (and refrigerate) food via trucks, trains, boats, etc. With a greater distance to travel, there’s also a higher chance of food spoiling or being damaged on its journey, leading to more food waste.
- Choosing local food offers fresher, more nutritious options that benefit your health.
- Food sourced locally spends much less time in transit from the farm to your plate, which means it loses fewer nutrients before you eat it. Plus, it’s fresher and tastes better. Eating local encourages you to eat with the seasons, learning when certain types of produce are at their peak for quality and taste.
- Plus, many local farmers take environmental health into consideration when growing food, using sustainable practices to increase biodiversity and protect pollinators.
- “‘Know your farmer, know your food’ is absolutely true, as local farmers are transparent when it comes to their growing philosophies,” Kenyon says. “Those who implement growing practices that are committed to improving soil, water, and air health are upfront about it.”
- Choosing local food strengthens our food system.
- When you purchase local food, you’re supporting local farming, processing, and distribution jobs, keeping your dollars in our local economy. The more of our local dollars that go into local food, the more local food is grown in our region. Those dollars invest in the future of our food supply.
- In addition to food, agritourism supports our community’s economy. Participating in local activities like farm to table dinners, goat yoga, and apple picking ultimately support folks living and working in our communities.
How can I access local food in Johnson County?
Now that you understand the difference that eating local can make, let’s delve into how you can access local foods in Johnson County. Our community is host to a lot of quality local food options, including these listed:
- Farmers Markets offer seasonal local foods and goods sold by our neighbors. Markets typically run May-October. Check out this list of Johnson County Farmers Markets.
- If you’re looking to order local foods online, Field to Family offers an online farmers market beginning Earth Week, April 17.
- Many local farms offer community-supported agriculture (CSA) shares for purchase. Vegetable shares are seasonal and subscription-based. Find a local CSA with this guide to Iowa CSA farms.
- Want to grow your own produce? You can’t get more local than that!
- Try your hand at gardening in your backyard; or, if your space is limited, container gardens kept on patios, steps, or in windows are excellent for growing your own tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, lettuces, strawberries, and herbs.
- Iowa City community garden plots are another great option for planting your own garden or gardening with friends.
- Plus: share your bounty and grow an extra row to donate to Table to Table! Drop your donations off at the Table to Table office in Pepperwood Plaza, 1049 US-6 E, Iowa City on weekdays or Saturday mornings.
- Shop local at the grocery store. Wherever you shop, check labels when you’re shopping to see where the food you’re planning to purchase came from.
- Free produce stands are hosted throughout the growing season at locations in Iowa City, Coralville, and North Liberty, stocked with fresh, local produce, free to all. Keep an eye on social media for Table to Table, CommUnity, Coralville Community Pantry, and North Liberty Community Pantry later this spring for details.
Activity
- Learn about how you can access local food in our area with Field to Family’s resources.
- Next time you go to the grocery store, pick out three produce items and check the labels. Where are the items from? Are they local or from a faraway place?
Resources
- Learn more about Field to Family’s “Farm to School” Month, educating the next generation about local agriculture (video).
- Watch “Dirty Food Chain: Why You Should Know Where Your Food Comes From” (video)
- Healthline lists seven great reasons to eat local foods.
- Check out Field to Family’s Local Food Explorer.
- Field to Family explains: “Where does your food come from?”
- Ecowatch lists 10 reasons to eat local.
- Emory University analyzes energy that goes into food production and distribution (2010).
- Nature discusses CO2 emissions from transporting food.
- Reference this Iowa Fruit and Vegetable Harvest Calendar to learn when your favorite produce is at its peak.
Read more Love Food, Fight Waste topics, brought to you by Table to Table and the City of Iowa City.
Table to Table delivery services affected by theft of catalytic converters
Iowa City, Iowa, March 20, 2023 – Table to Table (T2T), a volunteer-based Iowa City non-profit organization that recovers and delivers half the food distributed to people facing food insecurity in Johnson County has had services disrupted after theft of catalytic converters from their food rescue vehicles.
Upon arriving at T2T to launch food rescue routes this past Friday morning, T2T staff and volunteers discovered two vehicles were completely disabled, missing their catalytic converters. This pricey part has been the target of a nationwide rash of thefts. While this stolen part may get thieves only $50 to $300 at a scrapyard, this small nonprofit will have to pay $1,500 to $3,000 to repair and replace the parts, and then even more to protect these vehicles and the others from future catalytic converter theft.
With just a small fleet of refrigerated cargo vans, T2T volunteers collect and redistribute 45,000 pounds of food each week in Johnson County. This is a critical lifeline local neighbors need now more than ever due to drastic reductions in SNAP benefits enacted in April of 2022, and a dramatic increase in food prices that have led to a rapidly changing (increasing) food insecurity landscape in Johnson County. As resources at T2T’s local partner organizations including local food pantries and emergency meal sites are stretched thinner and thinner, every pound of food T2T can deliver is critical. Due to these thefts, T2T is currently operating without a quarter of their regular fleet, making it harder to capture all the food available as long as the vehicles are out of commission.
T2T needs community support to get the vehicles back on the road and bring operations back up to full capacity. Costs estimated for the affected vehicles exceed $5,000 and estimates to protect their remaining vehicles is not yet known. To donate, please visit table2table.org/donation
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Table to Table is a Johnson County non-profit that bridges the gap between abundance and hunger. Table to Table volunteers keep wholesome, edible food from going to waste by collecting it from local food donor organizations and distributing it to local anti-hunger organizations. T2T has distributed well over 30 million pounds of food locally since its founding in 1996.
Deep dive into composting
Banana peels, watermelon rinds, corncobs, eggshells, coffee grounds – the list goes on of food scraps that we don’t traditionally eat. Once we’ve eaten the banana, scrambled the eggs, and drank the coffee, what can we do with these non-edible scraps? Compost them!
Monthly Topic Overview
The Love Food, Fight Waste program has focused mainly on food waste reduction over the last several months because preventing food waste from forming in the first place is the top priority for reducing our environmental footprints. This priority is concerned with edible foods – the banana, not the peel; the egg, not the shell. For these non-edible food parts, composting is a great alternative to throwing these items out.
Below are several common questions related to composting answered.
What is composting?
Composting is the process of turning organic material (food scraps, garden/yard waste) into a nutrient-rich material that can be added to lawns and gardens to improve the health of the soil and the plants that grow in it.
Decomposition, the breakdown of materials, happens naturally in the environment. For example, leaves fall off trees during autumn and slowly decompose into detritus (organic matter) with the help of bacteria and bugs.
Composting is “facilitated decomposition.” The organic material in a compost pile is still naturally breaking down with the help of bacteria and bugs. In addition to this natural breakdown, Compost Operators facilitate this process by turning the pile to let oxygen in. Oxygen is needed for the materials to decompose.
What is organic material?
Organic material includes the following:
- Food (including fruits, vegetables, grains, meat, dairy)
- Garden/yard waste (including branches, grass, leaves, flowers, plants)
- Paper (including shredded paper, greasy/cheesy pizza boxes, paper napkins, paper towels)
- Clean paper, such as a pizza box with no food on it, is also fine to recycle.
- Shredded paper, due to its small size, is difficult to successfully sort at our recycling sorting facility in the mix of other materials which is why we do not accept shredded paper in curbside recycling. Shredded paper can be composted, or it can be recycled via the paper bin at a local recycling drop-off location.
What can be composted at our local Compost Facility?
All of the materials listed above in the last question: food, garden/yard waste, and paper products!
Who can compost at our local Compost Facility?
The Iowa City Landfill and Recycling Center, where the Compost Facility is located, serves all of Johnson County (residents at no cost, and businesses for a fee).
Where is our local Compost Facility?
The Compost Facility is located at the Iowa City Landfill and Recycling Center on the west side of town, 3900 Hebl Ave. SW, Iowa City. The facility is open Monday to Saturday from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
How does our local Compost Facility make compost?
From start to finish, the composting process takes about one year at our facility. Here’s how it works:
As clean loads of organic material come into the compost facility at the landfill, it is piled in a designated area. Our Compost Operators use equipment to lift material from the pile and load it into the grinder equipment. The grinder shreds the organic material into evenly sized pieces. This shredded material is then formed into long rows that are approximately 12 feet high.
The organic material in a compost pile is naturally breaking down over time with the help of bacteria and bugs. In addition to this natural breakdown, Compost Operators facilitate this process by turning the material with equipment once per month. As the bugs and bacteria are working away breaking material down, they produce heat, water vapor, and carbon dioxide. Turning and mixing the material is an important step because it allows oxygen in and releases heat which maintains a healthy temperature and oxygen level.
During the processing time, each compost row is required to maintain a temperature of at least 132 degrees F for a consistent two-week period. This requirement ensures that heat kills harmful bacteria and pathogens.
After several months of decomposition, monthly turning, and consistent monitoring, the material processes into the nutrient-rich soil amendment that we call compost. Before it is available to the public for sale, the compost is fed through the screener equipment to pull out any large organic pieces that did not properly break down or contamination pieces. It sits for one month to return to ambient temperature, and then it is available for sale to residents and businesses in Johnson County.
How can I compost at home?
- Curbside composting
- Curbside composting is available to Iowa City residents living in single-family homes up to 4-unit apartment buildings ($3.50/month on utility bill).
- If you are a curbside customer, check out the Curbside Composting Guide.
- Backyard composting
- Learn how to compost in your backyard with the Composting At Home Guide.
- Take materials to the Compost Facility
- If you would like to reduce trips and wait until you have a larger quantity of food waste, place in the freezer until you are ready to compost to avoid odor and rot issues.
Don’t forget about source reduction!
Composting is a food waste disposal method that is environmentally-better than landfilling, but it is still waste. It is important to eat edible food as the first priority to prevent wasting good food and to reserve composting for the non-edible food parts.
Activity
If you compost:
Look in your compost bin to see the different items that have been thrown in. Are the food items non-edible, like coffee grounds, or are they food items that could have been eaten and instead were wasted, like moldy bread?
If you don’t compost:
Look in your trash can to see what has been thrown away. Do you see any non-edible food waste that could be composted? Check out the tips above to learn how you can get started with composting.
Resources
- Residential Curbside Composting Information:
- Home Composting Guide
- Learn more about the Iowa City Landfill services and the Compost Facility with this short video.
- NPR’s 5-step guide to composting
- Beginner’s guide to composting: How do I compost? Where does it end up? How does it help fight climate change?
Read more Love Food, Fight Waste topics, brought to you by Table to Table and the City of Iowa City.
A year of “moving the needle” and a vision for the future
Allison Gnade’s first year as T2T’s food rescue Program & Services Manager
Allison Gnade has experienced many sectors of our community’s complex food system. She’s worked in grocery stores, on farms, and in a restaurant, dabbled in catering, and was once a long-time vendor at the Iowa City Farmers’ Market. (You may remember her sweet and savory tarts!) She’s a gifted writer and worked for eight years as editor of New Pioneer Food Co-op’s magazine and food blog, allowing her to visit farms and interview food producers throughout Iowa and see firsthand how, as she put it, “Growing food for humans in Iowa is such a challenging vocation, in spite of our fertile natural resources.”
These experiences and more led her to her current role as T2T’s Program & Services Manager – as she describes it, in her enthusiasm about the role: “an actual job saving food from going to waste, reducing the entire food system’s environmental footprint, by getting it to people who need it at no cost, thereby moving the needle just a little, even if just a little, towards less inequality? Sign me up.”
Her role at Table to Table is multifaceted. She maintains and improves our food rescue operations and builds relationships with partners to learn how we can best meet the needs of our neighbors. All of this ultimately strengthens the hunger relief network in Johnson County, which is no small feat, but she’s up to the challenge: “I don’t think I could find an organization more aligned with my personal motivations and values!”
Now, one year into the role, she’s helping T2T make concrete steps toward these goals. She has improved our AmeriCorps member onboarding and training process and led four AmeriCorps members in their work on access and equity, gleaning, free produce stands, and local food recovery last year. She led staff and AmeriCorps members through developing an Access and Equity training curriculum that partners will be able to use to train their own staff and volunteers on a variety of topics. She’s revised T2T standard operating procedures and helped recruit, hire, and onboard a team of seven staff & AmeriCorps in the past year.
Allison has also led an analysis of food donor contributions and relationship opportunities, with a vision for growth of these critical relationships. Now, she and the team are envisioning a donor and partner appreciation program that we’re excited to continue to implement in the coming years, and working to increase culturally appropriate and high-nutrition foods that are highly sought-after by partners. She’s also joined community conversations, including representing T2T on the Local Homeless Coordinating Board and exchanging ideas and support with the national Food Rescue Alliance, helping our operations align with our community’s needs and learning how changes in policy affect our constituents and our work.
When we asked her what drew her to T2T’s mission, she surprised us by sharing that this mission alignment began wayyyy back… all the way back to elementary school. She remembers, with a laugh: “When I was in second or third grade, I wrote a book called The Map to Food Land. It was about a group of starving animals that decided to work together to find a mythical map. This project involved the cooperation of a variety of mostly-unrelated animals clapping their paws together five times, doing a handstand under particular circumstances ‘in the city,’ which magically deposited said map in a garbage can, and led them to a grocery store to live in. [The End.] Some interests don’t change over time.”
As we ask all new T2T staff members, we needed to know Allison’s favorite food memory, and she couldn’t stop at just one. As a child, she fondly remembers: “Sitting on the porch swing eating peaches off our tree after riding the school bus home, peach juice dripping from my elbows.” In her college days, she remembers avoiding her homework by: “Finally mastering how to make caramel sauce, after the umpteenth try. Pro tip: don’t stir it!” More recently, favorite food memories include her young daughter: “Remembering and requesting – by very specific recipe – the birthday treats (which were more like projects) I made her in preceding years,” including a spiraled cake with luxuriant black currant icing, and lemon cupcakes studded with raspberries, topped with fluffy lemon curd frosting. Yum!
Allison conveys her passion for reducing food waste into her role at T2T with thoughtfulness and contagious enthusiasm. We’re very glad to have Allison, with her dedication and passion for food, food systems, and equity, on our team.
Rethink & revive your food
Those Brussels sprouts look wilty. That bread is crusty and stale. They can’t be good to eat, right? Think before you toss. There may be a way to revive that day-old veggie or bread into a tasty dish.
Monthly Topic Overview
Bread, fruit, and vegetables are just a few food categories at risk of getting wasted when items appear stale, bruised, or wilted. Embracing food imperfections with a little culinary creativity can significantly reduce food waste (and save you money!).
A note on food safety:
Many foods in these conditions (stale, wilted, etc.) are safe to eat. Following our tips on food expiration dates can help with understanding what is safe or not. Beyond these guidelines, use your senses – some foods are noticeably beyond saving if the look, smell, or taste is concerning.
Tips by food type:
- Bread: Make croutons, breadcrumbs, French toast, bread pudding, stuffing, and more with stale bread. Here are a few sources for recipes:
- Milk: Did you know that milk is safe to consume for a week past its expiration date (as long as it has been properly refrigerated)? Do a smell test.
- Slightly sour milk can be used as a substitute for buttermilk in cooking such items as pancakes or biscuits.
- Whole milk can be used to make ricotta cheese. Learn how with Emily from Table to Table.
- Not sure how to tell if milk is just a little sour or if it is spoiled? Check out this resource to learn more.
- Lettuce: Unwilt your lettuce by soaking in an ice bath. Learn how from Cook’s Illustrated.
- Bananas: Mushy and browned bananas? No problem! These are actually the best bananas for banana bread, smoothies, and more.
- Banana bread recipe from Allrecipes
- 36 other over-ripe banana recipes from Taste of Home.
- Have more bananas than you can eat right now? Freeze them.
- Apples: Bruised or wrinkled apples? These can be perfect for baking applesauce, pies, and other desserts. For a variety of recipes that use old or bruised apples, check out Kitchn.
- Tomatoes: There are a ton of recipe solutions for overripe or bruised tomatoes from lasagna, to marinara sauce, to soups. View recipes from EatingWell.
More tips:
- Mushy berries and other bruised, overripe fruits can be used to make smoothies. Blend fruit with water, juice, or milk. Add some honey or cinnamon for extra flavor and added nutrition!
- Got other wilted veggies besides lettuce? Soak wilted vegetables (carrots, celery and more) in an ice bath for about 10 minutes to bring them back to life. Wilted produce is usually a result of loss of water and they just need to be rehydrated. Learn more.
- Stale crackers or chips can be re-toasted in the oven to crisp them up. Learn more.
- Soup or sauce too salty? Add some vinegar, lemon juice, water, or brown sugar. Learn more.
Activity
Got some stale bread at home? Follow along with Emily in the kitchen and whip up some seasoned croutons or breadcrumbs!
Resources
- Tips to revive food from a variety of sources:
- NPR interview with Dana Gunders (formerly with the Natural Resource Defense Council and now Director of ReFED) on tips to cut kitchen waste
- How to revive food (Rachael Ray Show video)
- How to make croutons or breadcrumbs from stale bread (Table to Table video)
Read more Love Food, Fight Waste topics, brought to you by Table to Table and the City of Iowa City.
