I graduated from the University of Vermont in May, and instead of battling the tough job market, I decided to take a different route: riding my bike from Burlington to Maine to get a fresh lobster, camping out along the way.

Shortly after my victory meal, Green Living Journal asked me to write an article on colleges that serve locally grown foods in their cafeterias. By that time, it was late fall, and I challenged myself to bike to several Maine colleges before the snow arrived. The schools—The College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Unity College in Unity, Bates College in Lewiston, and St. Joseph's College in Standish—all advertise a commitment to environmental sustainability. What I discovered was that each of these schools has a different approach to getting local foods onto the daily menu.

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There’s a meat production revolution underway. A diverse collection of pioneers across the nation is producing beef by raising cattle on grass, not grain. The best evidence of the grass-fed beef boom is a label that began showing up on packages of grass-fed beef across the nation early in 2009. The American Grassfed Association (www.americangrassfed.org), a network of almost 400 graziers, also called grass farmers, is behind this effort.

On a recent Saturday afternoon I bought three dozen eggs from my local Wild Oats supermarket. All were large, brown, cage-free, certified organic eggs. The least expensive, at $3.19, advertised “225 mg of Omega-3 per egg.” The most expensive cost $4.29 and said “Two eggs contain 400 mg of Omega-3.” These were Grade AA, the highest level in the USDA’s voluntary cosmetic grading system for eggs (all the others were Grade A), and were positioned behind a little shelf tag encouraging me to “Buy Local” (although they didn’t appear to be local). The third dozen cost $3.49 and said nothing about omega-3 levels.

Regular readers know how we feel about garlic. Not only is it the spice of life and the foundation of all wealth, it tastes good. Now is when freshly harvested garlic is at its best. More importantly, this is when you should be thinking about planting next year's crop.