Eating local in WI: Part 1-- SPRING

Alright... eating local and organic is a passion of mine. So I thought that I'd do a few posts about it, one for each season of WI. This post will be about eating local in spring, as well as the reasons why I eat local/organic:

Reasons why:
1. It's eco-friendly. Did you know that for every calorie of food that you eat, it took 67 calories of fuel to get it to you????? So that means that a strawberry, which is 40 calories, took up over 250 calories of fuel just to get into your mouth. Can you say ridiculous??
2. It keeps money local. This helps the local economy of your city/town. Don't you want to help out those local farmers, who will in turn spend money at local stores, who will in turn pay more taxes for your school district, who in turn will... see where this goes?
3. It's more nutritious. Food that's JUST been picked has more nutrients that food that was picked before it was fully ripe. Food from California can't be picked when it's ripe, or it'll rot by the time you purchase it at the store.
4. That brings me to my fourth reason: it's TASTIER!!! Hello...have you ever had a strawberry in December... and have you had a local strawberry in June? BIG difference!

As for organic: Almost all of the same reasons... eco-friendly, healthier (did you know organic foods have WAY more antioxidants?), etc.

So... how can you eat local in spring in WI?? Well some of it is preparation (which takes place in summer/fall), but you can start eating local in WI.
What's in season?
1. Asparagus
2. Spinach/lettuce/greens
3. pea sprouts/sunflower sprouts
4. rhubarb
5. Jams, maple syrup
6. Local, grass-raised meats

With the meats, the greens, rhubarb and jam, there are alot of meals that you can make that have at least one local ingredient in them. Of course, I've saved other things from the rest of the year to help me make my meals more complete, but if you want to start eating local right now, you can start saving up now. For example, I make spinach pesto and freeze it for the rest of the year NOW. I can't make spinach pesto any other time (well except maybe fall when some farmers plant a second crop of spinach). I freeze some asparagus and rhubarb for the rest of the year, and I make rhubarb jam for the rest of the year. All of this has to be done in spring when the produce is local, but I have it all ready for me at hand in August as well as February.