Jessica Prentice - Photo by Anja Weber

East Bay–based Jessica Prentice is a pioneer in the most traditional of practices: eating good, seasonal, nutritious, locally sourced food. Her list of accomplishments, driven by a long-fostered passion to establish a connection to the most basic of our needs, is as notable as it is influential.

Fittingly, Jessica coined the very term locavore (in 2007 it was the New Oxford American Dictionary word of the year). And she’s made a life of not only pursuing being a locavore herself, but also of providing information and opportunity for others to follow suit, through cooking, community activism, education, organization, and writing. Most recently, in 2006, she co-founded Three Stone Hearth in Berkeley (threestone hearth.com), a community supported kitchen that creates prepared food that is nutrient rich, and predominantly locally sourced and organic, available by subscription for delivery or pick-up. She also founded the Headlands Hearth Bakery and Café in 2001, a community dining hall featuring locally and sustainably grown foods, as well as Wise Food Ways (wisefoodways.com), in 2004. In 2005, Jessica co-founded the Locavores group and spearheaded the creation of the Local Foods Wheel (localfoodswheel.com)—similar in design to a color wheel, it helps the user to identify what foods are grown in his or her region (it’s available for the Bay Area and New York Metro area) and in what season those foods are available. Jessica is also author of the much applauded Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection.

We spoke to Jessica recently about her pursuits and what it means to be a locavore.

Chérie Turner: Let’s start with the most basic question, what is a locavore?

Jessica Prentice: To me a locavore is someone who strives to base their diet on local foods.

What are the benefits to being a locavore? Why should someone subscribe to this practice?

The environmental benefits are the reason that most people come into this. That mainly has to do with the fact that the majority of the foods we eat in this country are shipped very long distances and that has a couple of disadvantages: we’re burning fossil fuels, which is not a renewable resource, and in burning them we’re contributing to global warming. And a lot of it is what could be considered unnecessary shipping. For instance, a lot of the apples you’ll find in the Bay Area come from New Zealand when we can grow apples perfectly well here.

I remember seeing a figure that showed that Great Britain exported as much milk every year as it imported. California does just about the same thing with strawberries. This probably has to do with seasonality; we export when they’re in season here and import when they’re out of season here.

On the note of seasons, can you speak to the how seasons effect eating choices if you’re a locavore.

If you’re basing your diet on local foods then you are eating seasonally, especially when it comes to produce. One hundred years ago just about everyone ate food seasonally. Now we don’t even really know what the seasons of produce are anymore because once they’re out of season locally, we just import them from somewhere else. We’ve lost that sense of tomatoes are best in August, asparagus is best in March.

Shopping at a farmer’s market will show you a lot about the rhythms of the seasons in the area.

And how about food quality?

If you’re shopping at a farmer’s market you’re getting the very freshest, best quality produce. If you’re shopping in the global food system, say, buying carrots from Safeway, they were picked a long time ago. And the kind of carrots you’re getting are bred and grown specifically to be hardy shippers. Another obvious case of this is tomatoes. Pretty much everyone can recognize the difference between a grocery store tomato and a vine-ripened tomato. Part of the consequence of being bred to be shipped and to last is that they are mealy and not juicy; they’re tough and not flavorful.

Is there a nutritional difference between food you typically find in a big grocery store and what’s at a farmers market?

The biggest difference, I think, is in animal products, probably more than produce. There’s a huge difference between pastured eggs and conventional eggs. There’s also a huge difference between grass-fed beef and feedlot beef, both nutritionally and environmentally. For produce, if people want to know about a particular crop, the farming practices for growing strawberries is extremely toxic, and there’s a huge amount of residue on strawberries. That’s a big nutritional issue, especially for kids because they’re smaller.

In addition to animal products and strawberries being particularly important to source locally, if you can’t be a locavore all the time, what other items are most important to source locally?

To me the top foods to eat locally are those that we can grow here that are largely being imported. Apples are a great example. They do really well here; Sonoma county had a wonderful apple orchard agriculture that has pretty much been undermined by the importing of cheap apples from New Zealand. So, buying local also supports local farmers. Also, one of my main motivations for eating locally is knowing that my dollar is going directly to the person who is growing the food. If you shop at a conventional grocery store, about nineteen cents of your dollar goes to the farmer. At the farmers market, almost all of that dollar goes to the farmer.

What do you get out of eating locally?

For me it’s really about connection. I’ve always had a hard time with the anonymity of our food supply. The sterility—it was depressing to me. That became my quest, to find food that I had some connection with. It gave me a good feeling. That feeling came from knowing the people who grew the food, knowing the story behind all of the food. And the food is better, no doubt.

Do you have anything else you’d like to add?

Yes. As a cook, one of the things that I love to do is make something that is exotic, like a curry. Obviously the spices that I’m using are imported, but then I use local chicken, local vegetables. If you’re eating locally, it doesn’t mean that you can’t have ethnic food. I love to bring foreign flavor to my locally bought food. There’s a big difference between importing a spice and importing produce.

Also, I think there are a lot of people who think, “Well, I’m not going to eat everything local. And I can’t get everything local, so I guess I’m not a locavore.”

If I have any credibility as the person who invented the word, I would say: that is not what this is about. It’s not about being a purist; it’s about connecting with the farmers. It’s about awareness of seasonal and local food. Just make an effort. Take a first step. Even if you just say, I’m going to stop buying asparagus from Chile and eat local asparagus that’s in season.