Three things we learned about locavore road trips from the Globe

Canada’s highways can be hell for road-tripping locavores—all those thousands of kilometres of pavement, with nary a locally grown, non-processed food in sight. Luckily, the Globe has served up a few solutions. Three useful tips, after the jump.

Plan ahead. Arlene Stein of the Toronto chapter of Slow Food travels with snacks from home and a cooler for harvest goodies, which she and her family collect as they go. Also, a little research can literally go a long way. Travellers can mark farmers’ markets on fold-up maps and glean tips from Web sites like eatwellguide.org (for locavore-friendly market and restaurant listings) and greeneggstoronto.com (for a database of artisanal food in Ontario).

Get lost. Leaving behind the service stations has its perks, says Su Grimmer, a food and travel writer from Nanaimo. As the Globe reports, “By asking a couple in a grocery store where to find good bread on a recent trip in California, she discovered a place where a Mexican woman was turning masa harina into tortillas and stuffing them with pork raised on a local farm.”

Try the eggs. Sarah Elton, the author of the piece, who’s writing a book about the local food movement in Canada, suggests asking servers which items on the menu are made from scratch. If the restaurant’s breakfast options look suspicious, stick with the eggs.

• Travel like a locavore [Globe and Mail]