What if you could make a simple lifestyle change that in one fell swoop, would dramatically enhance your intake of micronutrients and protect you from toxins? What if this simple change also increased the amount of joy in your life? What if it also supported your local economy, and bolstered food security for your whole community? It sounds like a tall order, but it’s not. One simple lifestyle change is really that powerful.
The “Locavore Movement” is in the news these days, and it is here to stay. This is no fad. It’s a revolution, destined to change the way we get our nutrition, and the way our local food systems function. Why? Simply because it makes sense at so many levels, and brings so many benefits to our bodies, and even, surprisingly, to our souls.
Did you know that most produce grown in the US is picked 4-7 days before being placed on supermarket shelves? And, it is shipped an average of 1500 miles to get there? It gets even more extreme when we look at the food on our supermarket shelves that comes from foreign sources, such as Mexico, Asia, Canada and South America, which often travels more than 3000 miles to end up on our plate! Is it still fresh? No, of course not. Is it harvested at its nutritional peak? Nowhere close.
The problem for most consumers was that, until recently, it was nearly impossible to avoid this situation. We have been dependent on imported food from far-flung places, harvested too early, and stored and transported under who-knows-what conditions. Sara Bongiorni, mother of three and author of A Year Without Made in China, found it nearly impossible to even detect foods that had Chinese-sourced ingredients, since labeling laws permit food manufacturers to get by without listing all their sources.
What is the driver behind all this? Simple economics. We aren’t importing food from overseas because it is of higher quality; we are importing it because it saves us a few dollars, and in some cases, just a few cents. In our zeal to save money on what is perhaps our single most important expense – the food that sustains and nourishes our bodies -- it is wise to bear in mind that only 1% of the food arriving from overseas is inspected by the FDA. Is it any wonder that we hear of new, tainted food scandals seemingly every other week?
The fact is, a lot of our favorite foods – American staples even -- now come from overseas. Did you know that more than half the apple juice consumed in the US now comes from China? Produce of all kinds, including fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, herbs, flavorings, food dyes, thickening agents, and all sorts of mysterious additives, now arrive on the shelves of our local supermarkets, beckoning to be taken home to be eaten by us, or worse, our children.
In the midst of all the controversy over tainted food from foreign countries, there is another, hidden story, the erosion of our own national treasure: our local farming system and our family farms, the real source of our food security. As industrial agriculture, and large food conglomerates have become ever more deeply entrenched here, we have seen the same erosion of quality standards that makes us fear foreign products; from E coli tainted beef and spinach and Listeria contaminated cheese, to Salmonella in our poultry and Mad Cow Disease.
Did you know that there are fewer than a million Americans now claiming farming as their primary occupation? This means farmers are a vanishing breed. Why? When you buy from a grocery store, the farmer gets less than 10 cents of the retail food dollar. This is just not enough to make a go of it. It’s not enough to justify the risks, and the bank notes needed to start, let alone run a farm, or to put their kids through college. Small, family run, high-quality food producers have been at a serious disadvantage.
What is the answer? I believe it is found in one word: Local. A local food movement is taking root (pun intended), all over this country. Consumers are discovering that the way to assure that what they eat is truly wholesome is to buy local, at Farmer’s Market’s, through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA’s), or through locally-oriented food co-ops and food buying communities that put the farmer first.
Local farmers who are able to sell direct to the consumers cut out the middleman and stay on the farm, doing the work they love. When you buy direct from the farmer, you are re-establishing a time-honored connection that gives you insight into the seasons, the weather, and the miracle of raising food. How? By joining a Community Supported Agriculture program (CSA), or simply making a habit out of stopping at the nearest Farmers Market every week.
Buying local, via a CSA or at a Farmers Market means your food is often harvested the same day or at most one day earlier! Food that fresh is bursting with micro and macro-nutrients that just aren’t found in industrially produced, trans-shipped produce. It also means the food is harvested when it is really ripe, not ripened using nitrogen or other forcing techniques that create the appearance of ripeness but don’t deliver the nutritional “goods.”
Food lovers know the unmistakable flavor that field ripened produce has. In addition, it means having access to generations-old “heirloom” varieties that you just don’t see in the store; varieties often bred not for “transportability” or “shelf life,” but rather, for nutritional value, texture and flavor. When vegetables taste this good, you just want to eat more of them. I believe one of the reasons for the increased consumption of processed foods is that factory-farmed vegetables are so tasteless and colorless.
Buying local means you can often talk to the person who actually grew your food. In an era of food toxin scares, this is no small matter. It means you get a reality check about the integrity and commitment of the grower. Does the grower use this or that method, fertilizer or chemical? Can they show you their organic grower certification? It also means getting other, valuable information about the produce itself, such as recipe suggestions, preparation techniques, nutritional information, and sometimes interesting food lore and history.
Local food is also seasonal. Instead of the bland sameness of the supermarket where the produce aisle has pretty much the same selection all year, local food changes with the seasons, and this is a good thing. Believe it or not, our bodies function seasonally, and over thousands of years, we were fitted for just these sorts of seasonal food rhythms. Bored with your diet? Eating local will give you not just fresh, more vital food, but fresh ideas to spice up your diet as well. I have experienced first-hand the incentive to eat more vegetables and try new things that is created by picking up a CSA basket bursting with seasonal produce.
OK, so it sounds like a clear win for nutrition and food safety, i.e. it’s good for the body. Just how does local food enrich the soul? Sharing locally sourced meals with friends and family and feeding our need for healthy and natural foods brings us closer to the earth and to our local farmers. It brings us into contact with something so life affirming that it is a bit bracing at first. Walking through a farmers market, enjoying the colorful, often truly gorgeous produce, is incredibly life affirming.
At the Farmers Market or at a CSA basket pickup site, spirits are lifted as new friends are made, recipes are shared and new, healthy networks established. Where grocery shopping can be a source of drudgery, procuring local food is inspiring and fun, as one is surrounded by individuals and families who, by their very actions, and by every dollar spent, are proving that real, healthy change is possible.
I believe it goes even deeper than that. Buying food at a Farmers’ Market, or through a CSA supports the hard work of local farmers, making it possible for them to carry on the vital tradition of family farming, and encouraging others to consider starting a local farm. Farming is truly becoming viable again, as the local food movement gains momentum. Kids are growing up once again in a world where farming is seen as a viable career option.
Beyond the local economy, making the local food choice helps our environment. By and large, the local food movement is organic, and that means a movement away from dangerous and unnecessary pesticides, herbicides and the artificial fertilizers. It means sustainable soil management practices that build, rather than deplete our precious topsoil, a commodity some feel to be more precious than the gold in Fort Knox.
As a physician, all of these reasons resonate strongly with me, as we make our own, family food buying choices. Here in Central Texas, we are now blessed with an abundance of choices in the area of local food. We have eaten many “10 mile meals,” this past year, where everything on our plates came from farms right around us, including humanely raised, pastured beef, pork, poultry and lamb. I don’t think this would have been possible just a few years ago. We feel mightily blessed to have been able to watch this movement grow around us.
We believe in this movement so strongly that we helped start an online food buying community called The Bountiful Sprout, LLC (www.bountifulsprout.com) , dedicated to directly linking consumers with local farmers and artisanal food producers. Now we can have the all the benefits of local, plus the convenience of ordering food online. Our food is waiting for us in a quaint looking basket on “pickup day,” but the implications of this kind of food buying system are anything but quaint! Now more than 140 families strong and just over one year old, The Bountiful Sprout is a testimonial to the importance of local food and the power of community.
To get started, look in your local paper to find the location and schedule of the nearest Farmer’s Market, or go to www.localharvest.org for national listings. Then put that schedule on your calendar. Local food is important enough to make a space in your life for; put it in your PDA, make it part of your commuting patterns; weave it into your life. To go further, ask around at the Farmer’s Market about CSA’s and local food buying clubs or communities. It can take some time to assess all your options, but trust that you will have options. Most areas of the country have more to choose from than we do here in Central Texas, and we have many.
On this recent Thanksgiving, as we enjoyed a plump, tasty, locally pasture-raised turkey, and an abundance of other delectable treats, we gave thanks for our precious local bounty and resolved anew to support it with our choices, our time and our dollars. By “choosing local,” we are choosing abundance, health, and a more soulful life. Moreover, we are watching something precious be rekindled before our eyes: a vital culture of food, conviviality and real wealth.
