Is buying local food and taking the time to reconnect with our food worth the fuss of trying to source it.
When we buy local we are trading in the convenience of heading to a grocery store, to drive to farms, pick-up locations, and farmers markets.
You may loose some of the convenience, but you are gaining so much more...
Why is Local Food Better
Local has more nutrition
By knowing your local farmer you can be confident in what you are feeding your family. You can choose farms that align with your values.
You are supporting a local family.
By reconnecting with your food you have the power to support farming practices that respect and nurture the environment, you can choose to support sustainable regenerative agriculture
You improve your local economy
Reconnecting and taking an interest in what we are putting in our bodies is so important for optimum health, or regaining our health AND in respecting our land.
When you reconnect with your food you reclaim the power to choose what you want to support and put into your body.
But How Does Local Achieve All This?
Local Food is Better and More Nutritious
The average meal from the grocery store has traveled 1500 miles [1]. The longer produce is off the vine the more nutrition it looses with age. After traveling long distances, it then must last on a grocery store shelf.
To make all this possible, these foods are typically picked before they are ripe, so they never had the chance to reach their nutritious potential.
Also, these conventional foods may be chemically treated or irradiated to slow down the rotting process [2].
Foods grown for larger suppliers, like grocery stores are often grown for the quantity, not quality because they need to meet the needs of their larger buyers.
Locally grown is picked when it’s ready, usually within the last 24 hours. This is when its nutrition content is high and its flavors are wonderful.
Locally grown is dependent on producing high-quality products to make it appealing to the small local market, which means it tastes great and that quality is more important than quantity [2].
When you buy local food you can choose the type of farming you want to support. You can choose foods grown without pesticides, herbicides, and synthetic fertilizers.
Farms that don’t use these methods, must build healthy soil so that they can grow healthy strong resilient crops.
When the time is taken to build the soils, the plants have the nutrients to grow strong and to deliver that nutrition on to you. So your food is more nutritious and healing!
When the land is nourished the plants and animals thrive and are in better health. And since we are what we eat, if they are healthy then they pass on their good nutrition to you.
Is Local Food Better than Organic Food?
When you buy local, you have the chance to get to know your farmer. You have the opportunity to talk directly with the farmer to find out how the food was grown or raised, and if it meets your standards.
The list of chemicals allowed under the organic certification label continues to expand. Knowing where your food comes from builds confidence in what you are feeding your family.
Many small farmers haven’t the funds to apply for organic certification, yet they still farm organically. So, talk to the farmer so you can feel confident in your food.
Organic certified, I do greatly support, but it’s not the end all be all.
For example, chicken or beef is healthiest and better for our health when animals can free-range their whole lives.
Grain finishing creates an unnatural balance of fatty acids and inflammation. Grass-fed is higher in the healthy omega 3 fatty acids. Organic certified does not guarantee this, it means that the animal was not given treated feeds, hormones, and medication. While all good, it doesn’t ensure they were pasture-raised and finished.
When you buy local, you are reconnecting with and taking an interest in how your food was raised. When you reconnect you take back your power to choose what you want to support.
Love in Local Food
Supporting your local farmer will make your food taste better too. You can feel the pride the farmer takes in growing great tasting food.
Farming is hard work, and your local farmers are generally very passionate about what they do, and it is rewarding to personally support their passion that supports their families. That rewarding feeling makes the food taste even better.
Is Local Food More Sustainable
When you to talk to your local farms, you can choose the farmers you want to support. You are able to choose to buy from the farmers that nurture and respect the land and animals.
Organic farming requires keeping the soil healthy to keep the plants strong and free of disease.
Healthy soil makes healthy more nutritious plants and animals. Conventional farming depletes the soil, relies upon chemicals to reduce disease, and synthetic fertilizers for the crops to grow.
Additionally, the small local farmer often is diverse. They rely on more than one product, to support their farm. This provides the farmer with greater financial security and is better for the environment.
The small local farmer may grow many crops, raise a variety of livestock, and keep bees.
This is more harmonious with nature than mono-farming one large crop. Diverse farming use to be the standard, livestock helps fertilize the soil, a variety of plants support the bees, supports microorganisms, and the soil [4].
This diversity improves the health of the animals, plants, and soil. It is nature nurturing one another.
When we become dependent on expansive areas of land planted in the same crop, and there’s a failure what’s the fallback? Diversity is always best for food security and the environment.
Buying Local Meat
When it comes to meat when you buy local you can also find out how the animals were treated. We buy our meat from a local ranch, they rotationally graze their animals on wild pasture grasses.
They are not certified organic, however, their practices are organic and natural to the animal.
The animals are never fed an unnatural grain diet, and they are allowed to free range their whole life. When it’s time to harvest a butcher comes onto the farm. The animals are never shipped out and stressed out at a slaughterhouse.
If the deplorable conditions of factory farming of our animals were in our face and weren’t something we could blot out, we would probably pause before grabbing that neatly packaged chicken or pack of bacon from the store.
When you buy from local farms, you can support farms that raise animals with care and harvest in the most humane way.
How Does Local Food Support Our Community
When you buy from local farms, it doesn’t just help support the local hardworking farmers and their families, it also supports the whole community.
Studies find that when money is spent locally, that local money is recirculated in the community.
This phenomenon is coined sticky dollars. A UC Davis study found, for every dollar earned by a farm that sold directly to their community .89 cents is reinvested back into the local economy, versus farms that didn’t sell directly to locals only .42 cents went back into the community.
Also, buying from local farms created more jobs. Every 1 million dollars earned from buying locally grown food created 31 jobs [3]. These numbers can vary across the country, but nevertheless it occurs nationwide.
Conclusion
Buying local is a great way to buy healthy food at a better price, and to connect with the seasons. In-season food is at its peak freshness and maximum nutrition.
Supporting local farmers growing healthy food, is not only good for us but the environment and the economy of your local community.
There’s often more local food in your area, than you may be aware of. This was true for me, trying to locate locally grown food isn’t always simple.
This is what inspired the creation of Real Food Finder, to help promote our local food system and support farming that restores land, animal, and us.
There are many reasons to choose local from supporting optimum nutrition to promoting regenerative agriculture and helping out your local economy.
It feels good to reconnect with our food, to support family and community. When you reconnect you take back the power to decide what you want to support and bring home to your family.
Want to Find Local Farms Near You?
If you want to find local food easier and support the local food movement, join the Real Food Finder Community and stay in the loop with our newsletter updates, AND join our Facebook group Local Farms Near Me.
Have a Farm to Promote?
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