WHY We Should Eat Locally
A Guest Blog Post by Vicki Renda
Owner/Managing Member of Vicki’s Fresh Food Movement
When asked by Dodi Darrow, Owner of Box Canyon Booties if I would write a guest blog post for her website about WHY we should eat locally, my initial thought was, “sure, easy.”
The reason for this being easy to write about is because between my personal lifestyle choices along with the development of my business, which sources and sells regional foods, I’ve had the pleasure of learning quite a bit about this topic directly from our regional farmers. Through my studies and work I have seen first hand from our food providers why this is important. When COVID-19 changed our lives in the middle of March 2020, the reasons why we need to be sourcing food locally became even more glaring.
Everyone was scrambling to put food and other resources in their homes. Supply chains got clogged up. It was worrisome to have to venture to the grocery store not knowing if what you needed would be on the shelves.
Now imagine if last summer and fall you had taken advantage of plentiful harvests of local nutrient dense food by spending a few weekends in the kitchen after buying in bulk. You could have been putting food in your freezer and cupboard, leaving you with a sense of food security and peace of mind know where all of your food came from. It is said that having a well-stocked freezer is one of the best things you can do for you wallet and your health.
Buying local food that is harvested at its peak ripeness then transported just a short distance to you is of growing importance with the ever changing world we are living in. We have all felt the crunch on supply chains due to the global pandemic. What happened with toilet paper was happening with eggs and produce. Due to the lack of and decrease in local food purchasing over the past few years, farmers were planting less and hiring fewer people. They were not ready for the surge in demand. If we had all been buying locally all along, we would not have felt such shortages in our southwestern corner of Colorado. Consistency promotes sustainability.
As I learned during my graduate studies in Sustainable Food Systems, the three elements of sustainability are social, economic, and environment. Unfortunately, our corporate food system referred to as agribusiness tends to ignore the social and environmental portions of this equation, leaving the focus on the economic/profit element.
Flavor, nutrient levels, fair wages for farm works, shorter food miles, sustainable farming and ranching practices that help our land and water, in addition to supporting your regional economy is the list of what sourcing your food locally envelops. I encourage you to do taste comparisons, eat locally for at least 3 weeks (if possible, do it for 3 months) and keep a diary of your energy levels and sleep quality, educate yourself, visit a farm, a ranch, and a dairy by the end of September to meet a few of your regional food providers. Be sure to go prepared with a few questions. Additionally keep track of what you spend on food. Quality should not be cheap, yet buying in bulk and making your own food will create savings. Unfortunately, we as Americans have been trained into thinking food can be cheap. As you educate yourself, you will find that other countries around the world spend a larger percentage of their income on groceries.
Our industrial food system is broken here in the United States and for more reasons than I can fit in the blog post. So I ask you to please, for the sake of your health, your family’s health, our planet, safe and equitable working conditions for folks working on farms, in addition to truly delicious food in your home, challenge yourself to be better.
