Locavore Week

Hawaii imports an estimated 90% of the food we consume, and at any given time we have only a seven day supply of perishables. Living in a land where almost anything grows year round, those numbers are eye-opening. I throw a rotting papaya in the backyard and have a new grove of trees the next day, yet we can't manage to grow enough to feed the people that live here. Something is rotten (besides my papaya).

The biggest culprit, of course, is pure economics. Weighing the choice between growing an acre of corn or an acre of condos, I can tell you which is more lucrative. The implications are far-reaching not just for food security--what happens if another 9/11 freezes air and shipping travel?--but also for the quality of the food we consume. Common sense tells me that a banana grown down the road is going to be fresher and tastier than one packed in a slow-moving container ship from Ecuador. Eating locally also helps the local community by supporting farmers and keeping food dollars in the islands.

Is it even possible to live in Hawaii and eat only locally produced food? I suspect it basically is, but now after months of just talking about the idea, it's time to put my money where my mouth is. A locavore is someone who strives to eat exclusively from their own foodshed. Here in Honolulu, I'm defining that to mean food produced anywhere in the Hawaii. For the next seven days, I'm going locavore and documenting the journey here. If it wasn't grown here, I don't want it.

Day-by-day: Day 1 is harder than I thought, Day 2 brought burritos and Day 3 was demoralizing. Day 4 caught me without a plan, so we went to Town. On Day 5 we finally bought fish, and Day 6 saw us grillin' Vietnamese style. Finally, in Day 7 I found my groove then a few days later wrap it all up.