Why eat local?

Our Holistic Moms Network May meeting tomorrow (Monday) night is about eating local and natural foods. Chelsey Simpson from the Oklahoma Food Coop will be our guest speaker. I already knew it was important to eat locally grown foods but today I went in search of exactly why it is so important. I came across some great reasons and I wanted to share what I found.

Why eat local?


It’s easier to control what goes into your body. You have no idea what pesticides are used and the route taken to grow and transport produce from another country to our local supermarket.

Local food tastes better. Farmers who sell direct to local consumers do not have to worry about packing, shipping, and shelf-life issues so they can instead focus on selecting, growing, and harvesting crops to ensure peak qualities of nutrition, freshness, and taste.

Eating locally means eating seasonally, which is how we keep our bodies in tune with Mother Nature.

Local food is safer. Even if it is not organic, small farms are less likely than large factory farms to douse their crops with chemicals.

Eating locally is good for the environment. The average fresh food on our dinner tables travels around 1,500 miles to get there. Just think of all the fuel you are saving when you buy from a farmer in your own community.

Eating local food means helping your local economy. On average, farmers receive about 20 cents of each food dollar spent. The rest goes for packaging, processing, marketing, transporting, and let’s not forget the distributor and retailer’s profits. As a dairy farmer, I know all about this. We get around 80 cents per gallon when we sell our milk through a dairy “coop” and $4 when someone buys a gallon directly from us. It’s very frustrating to know how much hard work goes into producing the milk and who is actually profiting from it.

If you need help finding a farmers market near you you might check out this website http://www.okgrown.com/. However, not all town's farmers markets are listed as I know Purcell has one but it is not listed. Whatever you buy whether it's meat, honey, soap, or produce try to buy as locally as possible. The future of our Earth and our farmers depends on it : )

P.S. If you haven't watched Food Inc. WATCH IT NOW!!! It's on Netflix instant.