Friday, January 21, 2011

Eating Locally

Last night after reading about how corn has become the American staple crop and can be linked to most foods that are not whole and even some whole foods, such as corn itself and dairy and meat/fish that comes from animals fed primarily corn, I started thinking about the foods I ate that day and where they came from. Although I wish I could pinpoint where everything originated easily, I can happily say only a few items (primarily the dairy I consumed) had a link to corn. Unfortunately, a majority of the food I ate traveled quite a distance to my table. If I'm striving to get back to the basics this year, shouldn't I also strive to eat locally? After all, eating locally will help promote local farming and ensure that I'm eating foods that are in season at the peak of their nutritional value.

If eating locally means obtaining all food close to home, wouldn't I, a Washington resident, be eating different foods than a person who resides in Florida? And if so, would I still be as healthy as a Florida resident? These questions also lead me to another: How much biodiversity is necessary in our diet? Is the biodiversity of my diet sacrificed if I'm eating locally, and if so, would my diet still be healthy...or should I start packing up to Florida?

2 comments:

  1. For us, eating local food is very important to us. We are members of a local, organic farm and participate in their co-op from March-October for fresh fruit and veggies. We also shop the farmers market weekly and buy any remaining produce there that we need for the week. We also grow our own veggies in our backyard. We used to buy our raw milk from a local farmer and also buy our meat from a local farm. We also get out eggs locally and they taste much better. I also can during the summer time so we have salsa, pickles, pickled beets, pickled green beans, canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, and spaghetti sauce throughout the winter from the fresh, organic veggies we get in the summer. The possibilities are endless!

    You can find local farms from searching localharvest.org and find something close to you.

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  2. Wow! You are my inspiration, Courtney. Just yesterday I found Full Circle Farm in our area and am going to try their produce service.

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