Savvy Vegetarian Blog

news and opinion on vegetarian diet and nutrition, vegetarian lifestyle, green living, and environment

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Wed, 01 Feb 2006

Tooting The Horn For My Hometown, Fairfield IA

Here's a best kept secret for you.

Fairfield, a town of 10,000 in south east Iowa, in the middle of corn and hogs, 5 - 7 hours from half a dozen major cities, is home to several thousand vegetarians and semi-vegetarians, many of whom appear to eat out every day, because Fairfield supports half a dozen vegetarian restaurants, and at least an equal number of all-but-veg restaurants. Vegan meals are easy to come by. (Some are listed in the Happy Cow Directory).

There is also a thriving natural food store, with, of course, a vegetarian restaurant. Not by coincidence, Fairfield is also home to Maharishi University of Management, a small private university with an organic vegetarian dining hall. They grow their own organic veggies, have a sustainable ag program, and host an eco fair every year.

Fairfield is big on locally produced organic food, hosts an award winning farmers market, and has more alternative health practitioners, artists, actors, writers, musicians and new age entrepreneurs per capita than most places in the world. It doesn't have mountains or an ocean, or in any way resemble San Francisco, Seattle, or NYC, but I'm from Vancouver, Canada, one of the most beautiful places in N. America, and I live in Fairfield IA by choice!

Who would have guessed?

I'm not saying you should all rush to live here - this is after all the middle-of-nowhere in the Midwest, and you might not like the climate, which has four seasons, or the weather, which varies wildly depending on which way the wind blows, and you almost have to run a web-based business to make a living - Fairfield is the entrepreneurs capital of the Midwest. But the cost of living is low, the quality of life is high - and you can always vacation elsewhere. Or, live elsewhere and vacation here! Look me up if you're passing through.