Here are my reasons so far:

I know it’s grammatically correct to say “locally“, but it’s the wrong idea. Lot’s of things purchased locally aren’t local. Also, I’m not preaching, in the sense that I think you’re a bad person if you aren’t buying local. Sometimes, you just can’t. If money is tight enough, it’s true that fruit shipped from Mexico means you get to eat fruit at all.

I guess I just want to list the ideas why buying local matters. Personally, I buy bananas, even though I know it’s like buying silver during the slave trade in the U.S. – it supports objectionable conditions in our corporate client states (our colonies, the Banana Republics). Also, I don’t buy local clothing. I don’t even know if there is much of it, but I wouldn’t wear it if there were, because it’s just not a style I can live with. I buy lots of things that aren’t local. Where I can start is local produce, locally roasted coffee, and local restaurants (local = mom and pop, not corporate franchises, even if the latter are “owned” by locals) – preferably restaurants that in turn buy local produce and locally roasted coffee.

You may be more aggressive at this point, or less so, than me. It’s not about looking down on anyone – it’s thinking about, constructively, how we can best love one another. And that does require thought – it’s not just a knee jerk check box on some spiritual or social list of correct mental attitudes. Love is something we do, or do not do, at each moment – it’s gritty, it’s inconvenient, and it requires work and contemplation – hence, this list.

I made a pitcher of nut milk today. 1 cup of cashews ($1.25 at CVS), 6 cups water (I used filtered), dash of salt (I used kosher), teaspoon of vanilla (I used real), couple teaspoons of some sweetener (I used turbinado). Hold back 5 cups of the water, blend the rest, add remaining water, blend again, and you’re done. I’m having it over Cheerios. Protein, just like milk, w. no animal products, and it’s delicious. Kind of like brown rice milk, not as thick as organic whole dairy, somewhere between 2% and skim. Cost factor is great, too. I’m sure I can get unsalted cashews for less. Advice: if you use salted cashews, don’t add the dash of additional salt.

Update 11/23/2010: I still like the cookbook. It’s the one cookbook I’d grab if I needed to take only one. But I don’t make cashew milk anymore. It’s too sweet and too thin. I drink whole organic milk or soymilk, and don’t like the thinness of skim for instance. Anyway, I still recommend this cookbook!

Experiment: Cookbook = Success. Nutmilk = Failed.

Tonight, that broth, with lots of substantial ingredients, makes it a pho-like noodle soup. This time with buckwheat noodles. Lovely stuff. Asian pear for dessert, and wine.

• Cheaper to package, ship, and sell – half the weight is in the bottle (and some vineyards aren’t cutting price by quite as much as they save)
• Stays fresh much longer – great for light consumption and that healthy glass per evening
• Eco-friendlier, due to recyclable packaging and less intense manufacturing, and much lower shipping weight

With the latest thinking on the health benefits of light consumption (US government agencies actually had but suppressed data supporting this in the 1990s), these clarities make it much easier to have a glass or two for wellbeing when permitted. Red wine (reservatrol) is thought to stave off heart disease and many effects of aging and balance cholesterols toward the good ones, cabernet sauvignon may help prevent alzheimers,  and of course it has long been understood that wine cleanses most pathogens that adversely affect humans.

These developments (realization of the nexus of benefits to personal heath and ecology) are a boon to the wine industry – revitalizing wine as a handier beverage, but also bringing in tons of light “sippers”. And sipping is the way to go: sipping wine slowly increases absorption (through the mouth) of the helpful nutrients that quick consumption loses to liver processes – increase from absportion is by a factor of 100. It’s like a single bowl of tobacco per day for a true pipe smoker (one who doesn’t inhale). People with zero wine consumption are actually closer, statistically, to the health situations of those with heavy consumption. Moderate consumers who consume in a moderate manner beat them all.

I have a feeling it helps with maintaining a healthy weight too – and not because wine drinkers are statistically, generally closer to their optimum weights. By experience, I notice I’m less interested in desserts and other snacks with wine. It has done nothing but enhance, however, my craving for pure, high-quality dark chocolate (my ‘secret’ source being CVS’ dollar aisle) – no nougat, not cookie, no garbage, and no high-sugar air-filled Hersheys - just dense, dark chocolate. On the other hand, that doesn’t seem to be much of a problem in moderation, either.

Downsides to the box are:

• Even bag in a box may not be a perfect vacuum seal, tho that’s the intent – so, if you’re going to keep your box of wine more than a few days, you should probably refrigerate it. You can decant your red and let a small portion warm up 40min before drinking. Still, 3 weeks is the advised time before damage from oxidization, once opened, if you’re using the bag in a box, compared to days for a bottle or the ordinary lined/bagless box. For non-bagged boxes, there’s no pump, so consume those in normal same-as-bottle time frame.
• Because of the initial vacuum seal, you get what you package, so you can’t rely on a vintage to age. However, storage becomes less of an issue and, besides, 12-18 months is the current intended consumption time for most common wine. How long were you going to pack away that $10 bottle of Ravenswood?
• It’s highbrow to go lowbrow, so surely the yuppies are going to ruin it, like they have coffee shops, motorcycles, and most everything else. Just give it time.

In my home, it’s coffee in the morning, tea by day (or water with some Mexican lemon juice), and the wine in evening. Box wine is a great, relaxing medicinal, for body and soul, to look forward to at day’s end. The box has brought me back from rare moderate to frequent light consumption.

I think light consumption helps settle the stomach too. I have acid reflux and take Nexium but, after the first night, the wine is treating me right in reaasonable quantities. During a fast (from meat, wine, and oil), the Apostle St. Paul advised Bishop St. Timothy to drink wine medicinally for his stomach (medicinal use is always approved when one’s bishop judges it a genuine illness). Contemporary science has since rediscovered what people already knew – it helps with peptic ulcers.

There’s a good article on wine and health [here]. Wikipedia’s [piece] is also excellent.