I READ an interesting article yesterday about some groups of people in Fife and Norfolk who decided to experiment with eating only food from within 100 miles of where they lived.

Although they started off as 100 per centers they both settled on a 60 to 70 per cent local supply, mostly so they could have chocolate, coffee, tea and a drop of Prosecco.

At the heart of these “experiments” was the local farmers’ market which both supported the idea and indeed was the catalyst for it in the first place.

I imagine there are a great many people in Stroud who could very easily claim to eat 60 to 70 per cent of local food every week, especially if the majority of your diet is fresh produce.

However, I don’t think anyone from Stroud has gone public or made a big deal out of this fact.

We take it for granted almost that we are naturally following this path.

“Of course we eat 60 to 70 per cent local produce in our diet,” is something many of our regular customers could say.

With our fabulous weekly market and with the wide range of produce available week in, week out, it is actually quite easy to follow the mainly local path if you live in or around Stroud.

But what makes it hard for many is the fact that you have to put up with lengthy periods of time without the foods you adore until they next come into season.

A great example of this for me is in the case of cherries.

I could go to the supermarket and buy cherries which have been flown in from the far-flung corners of the globe at most times of the year.

I love cherries, but they only have a onemonth season (July-ish) in England so to eat them only from local producers means 11 months without any cherries at all.

However, the reality is that this just makes that month when they are in season into an absolute delight and something I can anticipate and look forward to with great relish.

It’s like Christmas or your birthday.

You know it only happens once in the year and you have to wait until it comes along.

And when it finally does arrive, it’s great!