For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Breaking The Chains page.
I love it when someone makes me think. I also love it when someone puts their money where their mouth is to live their principles. I love it even more when those principles make me look at the way I live and challenges me to be a better person or be more accountable for my life. Such was the case after I ate at the award winning Locavore restaurant at Stirling in the picturesque Adelaide Hills recently.

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase:

“If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.”

While we all care about health and the environment, caught up in our daily lives it’s often too hard to think about how to become part of the solution. The children are fighting and late for school; the baby’s just upended his porridge bowl on his head again and the dog’s been sick on the carpet. So how do you find time to make the shift and become part of the solution with so much on your plate? And what happens when you aren’t even aware you are part of the problem? So what can you do and what was it about my meal at the Locavore restaurant that got me thinking? Before I can answer these questions we need some background.

Locavore is a new word. While the Oxford American Dictionary named it Word Of The Year in 2007(1), most people won’t know what it means. While a herbivore eats plants and a carnivore eats meat, a locavore eats food grown locally, within their geographic region. Particularly, foods produced within a 160 km (100 mile) radius.

I’ve been a supporter of eating locally for years. I eat fruit and vegetables in season, grow my own, frequent farmers’ markets, community collectives and buy local produce whenever I can.