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Buy cheap plavix, NOVEMBER 16, 2007 - Last year professor Tim Beatley of the University of Virginia invited his students to share a 100-Mile Thanksgiving - he even made bread out of acorn flour for the occasion. This year, he has decided to add a "glocal" component to the festivities. Here's what the author of Native to Nowhere: Sustaining Home and Community in a Global Age has to say about his choice:

By Tim Beatley

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA - Last fall, students and faculty at the University of Virginia met for an unusual Thanksgiving meal. We had taken to heart the challenge of Alisa Smith, a Canadian author and passionate foodie, who was appalled that most ingredients in North American diets traveled an average of 1,500 miles to reach our tables. Instead, we planned a Thanksgiving meal using only ingredients found within a 100-mile radius of our homes in Charlottesville.

After I allayed some of the students' initial concerns, such as whether pumpkin pie spices were off limits (they weren't), students and faculty in the School of Architecture's Department of Urban and Environmental Planning embraced the idea of a 100-Mile Thanksgiving, buy cheap plavix.

Everyone took the challenge seriously and we all learned much about our community and region. By developing personal connections with farmers and producers, students learned about the local growing environment and the often-difficult circumstances faced by local farmers. Some of our newly arrived graduate students joined a local CSA -- Community Supported Agriculture, a kind of subscription farming in which residents buy a seasonal share in a local farm in exchange for a weekly box of fresh produce. Many others began frequenting our vibrant farmers' market. Buy cheap plavix, These experiences led them to view themselves as members of a community, with duties and commitments, rather than as temporary visitors.

We also learned to think more about seasonality. There was a collective gulp when we realized that many products would not be available locally by the time Thanksgiving arrived. And some traditional food items were not available locally at all. Still, there were wonderful discoveries, lowest price valium. Within our 100-mile radius we discovered Wade's Mill, which sells flour and cornmeal from locally grown grains, buy cheap plavix. We discovered local artisan cheeses, and local jams, jellies, and honey. We realized that many good things are happening, but difficulty sourcing some items highlighted to us that there was still much to be done in re-establishing local food systems.

EACH STUDENT in my Sustainable Communities class researched a local food and contributed a Thanksgiving recipe utilizing locally grown ingredients. At our dinner, there were locally grown potatoes and greens, and turkeys from local farmer Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm (now somewhat famous as a result of Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma). Buy cheap plavix, And there was full geographic disclosure -- all the dishes were accompanied by cards indicating the percentage of ingredients derived from within 100 miles.

The meal and the class were a huge success, not only in terms of what they taught us about the food available in Central Virginia, but also about the interconnected nature of communities, illuminated by the study of sustainable food. And the food was delicious.

Food provides an entree to every aspect of community sustainability: land-use practices, energy use and fossil-fuel dependence, public health and the obesity crisis, and levels of consumption. And it allows students to explore lifestyles that need not be sacrificial, Buy levitra overnight delivery, but can be inherently richer, fuller, healthier. Sufficiency and sustainability look pretty appealing in the form of a rhubarb confit or a blueberry pie, buy cheap plavix.

But what about our commitment to the global food community.

We live in a global community, a rich and wonderful array of environments, cultures, and traditions. The idea of "glocalism" recognizes that we have an obligation as ecological citizens and consumers to care, not only about our local communities, but also about the larger world. Our choices of food and other products provide us with opportunities to make connections with people around the world, to help improve their living conditions and life prospects, and to help solve the problems that our consumption helps create. Buy cheap plavix, What we take from the global commons, we should give back, measure for measure.

How can we do this.

1. By selecting ingredients that leave a small ecological footprint and require only low levels of energy and carbon in their production and transportation.
2. By thinking about our food choices in ways that highlight serious global problems and point the way to possible solutions, buy cheap plavix.
3. By seeking recipes that connect us to our family heritage and help connect us to people in other countries and cultures.

By choosing products that allow us to attach a face to food. Can we select foods with "stories" that build awareness of our common humanity?Food offers us a way to look inward, to reconnect with our families and our heritage, diazepam, as well as a way to look outward to our local and global communities and gain a powerful understanding of our interconnections. Buy cheap plavix, Last year, the students and faculty at the University of Virginia who participated in the 100-Mile Thanksgiving challenge found it a transformational experience. Many of us plan to accept the challenge again this year. Won't you join us.

- Reprinted from the Richmond Times-Dispatch with permission of the author. .

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