School lunches

Knowing which field a pig frolicked in before being turned into your lardon used to be the stuff of fancypants restaurants and Portlandia sketches.

But eating food grown or raised within a small radius of where one is currently standing is becoming more common in the Twin Cities, as the people who help feed us realize it can be good not just for health and planet, but also for the bottom line. 

It’s easier for consumers to choose local, not only when grocery shopping or making a dinner reservation, but in all of the places they might want to grab a bite. Here are five surprising places to eat local in Minneapolis and St. Paul. 

At work

School lunches have come under some serious scrutiny as of late, and, it seems, not a moment too soon. As Americans try to find explanations for our growing obesity epidemic, the food available to children during the school day is being fingered as one of myriad culprits. I was horrified to read about the low cost, low quality, highly processed junk consistently fed to American children, day in and day out, under the National School Lunch Program. I was fired up and inspired after watching Jamie Oliver’s impassioned TED prize acceptance speech and call to arms to try to recapture our lost food culture by teaching children about cooking and eating good, fresh food.