Tastier Than Tofurkey

Here are some facts to chew on over Thanksgiving dinner. Your average long-distance trip to visit relatives or friends: 214 miles. The average trip for the vegetables you’ll eat: at least 1,500 miles.

Thanksgiving is going long-distance, along with the rest of the American diet. Trucks stuffed with turkeys (a $640 million Thanksgiving business), will fan out cross-country from Minnesota, North Carolina, and other top-producing states. (Only one in two thousand will be organic.) More than 80 percent of the cranberries (annual production: 690 million pounds) will come from just two states, Wisconsin and Massachusetts.

Much of this is unnecessary. While it's true that cranberries don’t grow anywhere near California in November, many other ingredients like leeks, celery, chestnuts, and squash do. And locally produced turkey is available in most parts of the country. The fact is that no matter where you live, the majority of the ingredients for a Thanksgiving dinner can be found at local farmers' markets, or via Web sites such as localharvest.org. Even vegetarians with no stomach for tofurkey can find inspiration through seasonal foods directories or by trading recipes on sites like 100milediet.org/thanksgiving.