As the dime-a-gallon project has developed we have become aware of how important food is in reducing our dependance on fossil fuel. In the middle of winter grapes and other fruit is routinely flown or shipped from Argentina and Chile. Even in the middle of summer when local produce is easily available, large amounts of food are transported 1000's of miles.Some people have suggested that by eating locally grown food we are "Eating for Peace" because the need for foreign oil is reduced.

In February we had a "Local Food Brunch" in which people brought food that they had prepared from ingredients that were grown within 100-150 miles of our Quaker Meeting in Berkeley, California. The brunch was very successful with a lot of delighted comments like "This is delicious- what's in it?", "I didn't know you could get that in Berkeley!" and "We should do this more often". It was so much fun that we now will be having a local food brunch once in every season of the year.

We have developed several web pages about this issue. The "Top 10 Reasons" page gives ideas on why eat locally. The "How to Choose" page shows how to choose what kind of food to buy. The "Farmers' Market" page gives information on the farmers markets in the San Francisco Bay Area. The "Local Brunch" is pictures of our local brunch that we had in February this year and the "Other Web Sites" page gives more information from other web sites.