I encourage you to plant some greens: turnip, kale, mustard, collards - whatever you like, or some of all. Then find some way to fit them into every meal. Eggs with greens and feta. Greens in the soup. Greens in the stir fry. Or just a big mess of greens by themselves (with a little vinegar or sauce). Plant them in a large pot, a small bed near the house, or a field full for the whole neighborhood. They will last most of the winter and come back strong in the spring.

And don't forget to grow sprouts in jars by the kitchen sink. Fresh, crisp, raw, or cooked.

Venison from your backyard or...

tofu from several hundred miles away?

If you're eating meat, do you really care anyway?

How many of you are honestly hunting your own food/allowed to?

I'd have a hard time imagining eating "local" meat, due to the inherent inefficiency, would be environmentally better than that grain that came from a few hundred miles further...

Seriously, I think if you're still buying meat from anywhere, you probably need to re-evaluate this whole "impact" thing.  
Nothing like a few pounds of beef to multiply your ecological footprint...

What kind of lousy copy-editing does poor Umbra have to depend upon? The proper adverbial form, of course, is "rutabagally." We'll forgive Umbra her lapse, since even Homer occasionally nods... but the copy editor's oversight (probably attributable to Grist's budget constraints) is really rutabagal.

grain produced in large quantities and shipped is orders of magnitude more efficient than people driving around in trucks chasing deer.

J.S.

Did you use a life-cycle energy analysis, such as the energy (and money) that goes into grain production, i.e. making tractors, using oil-based fertilizers and pesticides, plowing, seeding, soil lost to erosion, carbon influxes from degraded soils, making railroad cars, train tracks, bridges, general aesthetics and human well-being to back up your statement? Or did you use a faith-based proposition?

There is a great book to help you figure out how to keep your garden going and your indoor storage of veggies fresh through the winter - it's called Four Season Garden by Eliot Coleman (or something close to that). Really good ideas to keep local food on your table for the winter. I'm using the ideas in my upstate NY home and he created the book living in Maine (or Vermont? my memory's not so good today!) so it's definitely possible in NH.

Good luck!

Willa,

I seem to remember Umbra tackling that very issue (but I'm too lazy to search the archives).  If I recall correctly, she came to the conclusion that the freezer does indeed save energy over trucking in of string beans from Cali.

My own organic veggie CSA ended (two weeks early!) before Halloween.  I am in denial that I am now back to store-bought veggies and the appalling lack of variety therein. I'm clinging to the last vestiges of the harvest - pumpkins & butternut squash - before the long, cold, fresh-veggieless winter.

I flirted with the canning idea (the tomatoes from my farm were simply amazing) but I too balked at the pressure cooker idea.  Memories of Breakfast at Tiffany's methinks. Ouch.

I do a lot of canning, but so far just water-bath canning (jam, applesauce, pickles). I have relatives who do pressure canning, but I haven't made the leap yet myself. One thing at a time.

I do have a chest freezer and I (heart) it. If I recall correctly, Umbra came down on the side of chest freezers from an energy viewpoint; I'd like to come down on their side from an aesthetic viewpoint. Which would you rather put in a winter stew: flaccid, greyish canned beans or bright green, barely-blanched beans from the freezer?

Having a freezer also allows you to eat better. I make twice as much as I want to eat right away, then put some in the freezer. Then, instead of doing something quick (read: expensive and less healthy) when I'm short on time, I pull something delish (and nutrish) out of the freezer.

Even the freezer compartment in my fridge is enough to allow me to make planned leftovers, so i usually have some soup or something stashed there (and for lunches to take to school/work, it's a lot easier if the soup starts out frozen, so it doesn't leak all over the lunch bag, substitutes for an ice pack, and is thawed by lunchtime).  In order to really preserve food for the winter, though, I need a bigger freezer.

Also, Quorn chicken products are on sale for $1.20 off the regular price this week, and I could only buy four packages because my freezer is so full.  

So, to mildly hijack this thread, does anyone have an energy-star chest freezer they absolutely love (or hate)?  What should I look for, and what features do I not care about?  Or should I just go on the Energy Guide data and buy the one that uses the least power?

mijo's list of greens: turnip, kale, mustard, collards - sounds wonderful, but I've never seen any of them except kale!  Must be an Anerican thing?  Here in Oz (Australia) we often tuck into silver beet, aka chard; ruby chard is nice, too, and both grow right through our fairly mild winters.

Frankly, if I lived in America's New England, I'd emigrate! (or at least trek south for winter).  In Oz's New England, it's really "What winter?" - pretty mild.  If I were stuck in a cold clime, I'd definitely grow what I could indoors, if only a few greens, herbs and tomatoes.  Here (in Victoria) we can plant and harvest potatoes outside all year round, and they're the ideal vegie garden starter - so simple kids can grow them. And tomatoes grow well in tubs most of the year, as do sweet capsicums.  You can grow tubs of these last three on verandahs or in enclosed porches all year round in most climates.

Did I mention my heritage rhubarb?  It's been growing in the same spot for decades, and makes a great addition to stewed apple and custard.  We pick year round.  We've also got a mature blood-plum tree, which bears prolifically and of which we stew and freeze maybe quarter to half each year (the rest goes to neighbours and rellies).  If you've got space for a lemon tree, pick the warmest corner of the garden and it'll fruit most of the year.

We had a big chest freezer, but my diminutive wife and even tinier daughter kept falling in!  So we replaced it with an upright freezer with drawers from Fisher-Paykel.  Highly efficient, and not half so terrifying. ;-)