Eat Local Challenge / Going into the Eat Local Challenge ([eatlocalchallenge.com]), in which I pledged to eat only food grown in the Hawaiian Islands for a month, I had no illusions that eating locally would save the world. And I don’t propose that Hawai’i grow wheat and rice and that we all swear off olive oil. My hunch is that we currently don’t have the resources (land or human) to feed our entire population on locally grown food.

So why, then? Why abstain from so many of life’s pleasures–bread, ice cream, rice, pasta, butter, cheese? Quite simply: because I believe there are other pleasures to explore via this challenge.

Shopping, cooking and eating, while more time-consuming, are now acts of adventure. There’s a sense of excitement when I approach the farmer’s markets, Tamashiro’s, Chinatown, Whole Foods or Kkua Market. For this urban-dwelling girl, tiny produce stands and the outer edges of any supermarket (where I find fish and produce) are now my foraging grounds. Even extracting the meat from a coconut becomes a demonstration worthy of the Polynesian Cultural Center when a friend de-husks and cracks open a coconut to a small crowd. We’re used to seeing the coconut either on the tree or in a can, and nothing of the processes in between.

Getting started

The first few days, while exciting, were not entirely satisfying. And contrary to many assumptions, it wasn’t for lack of protein. My freezer was amply stocked with 50 pounds of beef from a Moloka’i grass-fed, organic cow share. No, despite the bounty that unfolded on our dinner table the first nights–grilled moi with Meyer lemon, Pu’u o Hk Ranch beef and daikon soup with Hamakua kea hon shimeji mushrooms, Ma’o Farms rainbow swiss chard and mixed greens, fresh ‘ahi sashimi, taro fries, Big Wave tomatoes, and for dessert, guava sorbet, papayas, grilled bananas, and pomelos in ginger syrup. All I could think of was how great the fish would have tasted with rice, or the beef soup with noodles. Without starches, something always felt like it was missing.

Snack times were the hardest. Nothing seemed convenient. I found myself in a movie theater peeling longans and sitting uncomfortably with sticky hands in the dark for two hours or spilling papaya seeds all over the car seat when trying to eat a papaya in the car. I’ve considered starting a compost pile in the car with the banana peels and fruit rinds discarded in there. Hunger is no longer satiated by a quick stop at the bakery, a bag of granola or a peanut butter sandwich.

It was in times like these–hungry, far from home, with no quick bite in reach–that the whole thing seemed like a silly exercise. But if I had never joined the challenge, I would never have found myself mucking about in a lo’i in Kahalu’u or at the Waiahole Poi Factory, learning about taro and poi and Hawaiian culture in a quest to find a new starch to replace bread and rice. I might never have discovered the bounty at Frankie’s Nursery, where I was introduced to mamey sapote (which has the taste and texture of sweet potato pie) and lalee jewo (I can’t seem to get enough of this mango relative that tastes of mango and lychee). While Chinatown, the produce markets and a friend’s tree in Punalu’u lay barren of breadfruit, Frankie’s trees were laden with more than even my starch-deprived diet could handle. I even turned to Craigslist, my resource for jobs, furniture, apartments and cars as a new resource for food. Via a Craigslist post, I bought brown eggs with vibrant, rich, gold yolks and stiff whites as delicious as they were beautiful.

“I know what I’m eating”

These experiences epitomize all that’s good about the Eat Local Challenge. It’s not because I think eating local alone will end global warming or spell the demise of corporate factory farms. I do it because it tastes good and because of the new taste experiences. I didn’t even know about lalee jewo, my new favorite fruit, a month ago. Dragonfruit makes a regular appearance for dessert. Salad bowl and butter avocados are creamy and rich enough to rival the ubiquitous Hass. Big Wave tomatoes are better than any tomatoes shipped from the mainland. Hawai’i’s seas produce a dozen varieties of delectable fish: from moi to walu to monchong to opah (one of my favorite meals included opah with papaya, key lime and mint salsa). A little more than three weeks into the challenge, I know there are still endless possibilities to savor: Big Island Dairy goat cheese, Waialua chocolate, and I’m still waiting for my wild boar.

I eat local because I know what I’m eating; I know who produces my food. I helped clean, mill and bag the poi I eat. I visited my eggs’ mamas, watching them wander the property, crooning and pecking at worms and other unmentionable insects (what makes my eggs so tasty, I guess). I’ve met some of the faces on the produce tags at Whole Foods. When I’m eating locally, if I have questions about what I’m eating, I can visit the farm.

Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten to know a few of these farmers that I’m even more adamant than before about supporting small farms. It’s not just out of agrarian nostalgia; it’s because I don’t trust the food factory farms produce with their inputs of chemicals and outputs of waste. I trust our local producers more. I admire the farmers and ranchers that I’ve met–their thinking out of the box, their fighting to keep solvent in this island economy. I want to support the lives they’ve carved out for themselves and I want them to continue to do what they’re doing, if only for the selfish reason that I want to eat what they produce.

To be honest, though, I am counting down the days until this challenge is over. All the poi from Waiahole, no matter how fresh and enjoyable, can’t replace the void left by bread and flour’s other sweet and savory products. This month, I’ve had breakdown moments where I’ve binged on a muffin while crouched in a corner, ate an entire plateful of greasy chow mein at a party, stuffed a whole malasada in my mouth and broke down in front of a Chinatown bakery. And I didn’t exactly relish those experiences: the combination of guilt and desperation clouded my taste. Ultimately, food should be about pleasure, even in the face of current food politics. So I plan on adding dairy and grains back into my diet at the month’s end so that I can savor them instead of feeling depraved for eating a bagel. But everything else I’d like to keep the same: eating local produce and proteins, learning about the people who grow my food, exploring and appreciating the incredible variety Hawai’i has to offer, and always questioning, where is this from?