With 2013 around the corner, I am asking myself one question: What healthy habits will I try to commit to this year?
One simple way to make a big improvement to our environment, health and well-being is to eat more locally raised foods. This can be a tough transition, not because these foods aren’t available to us, but because we tend to make buying decisions based on other factors like practicality, price, habit, and a thousand other reasons that have nothing to do with intangible ends like sustainability.
Maybe we just need to know the ways in which buying local foods will affect us directly. Here’s my top 10 list of reasons why this is your year to make the change toward conscious eating.
10. Keeping food dollars at home. Eating local means buying from small family farms near us. It means supporting local businesses that make a community thrive. A dollar spent on local food is a dollar being kept in our own town or county rather than supporting the balance sheets of a global corporation.
9. Environment. The food industry is a bigger contributor to global climate change than any other industry, including transportation. As individuals, changing our food habits to support small farms is the single biggest impact we can make toward a healthier planet — even more so than improving the efficiency of our cars and households.
8. Food security. “An acre a minute” is the determination by land conservation authorities as to how much farmland we are losing to development. By supporting small farms, we help keep them in business. And by keeping them in business, we ensure that the fertile land in our garden state stays in the hands of the people feeding us rather than being sold for development.
7. Compassion for
animals. Ninety-nine percent of our meats and dairy currently comes from conventional feedlots — i.e., factory farms that pack animals into crowded cages, among other abuses. Buying meats and dairy from farms that raise animals humanely reduces these cruelties in the name of animal welfare.
6. Food safety. That same 99 percent of animals are dosed with antibiotics every day to prevent the rapid spread of disease that is fostered in their closed environments. This gives rise to antibiotic-resistant bacteria that are responsible for many of the recent outbreaks in our food system. Knowing where our food comes from averts us from these risks.
5. Personal health. Foods bought from small, local farms are more nutrient dense because they are picked at peak ripeness. These foods are not carrying smatterings of chemicals used in conventional farming that ultimately build up in our bodies.
4. Variety. Sustainable farms usually have an eye toward promoting heirloom and unique varieties of fruits and vegetables. Meat producers raise heritage breeds of animals. Micro-breweries, local wineries, and artisan cheese makers craft recipes that are creative and different. Shopping for local craft foods and beverages translates to a more diverse, complete and satisfying diet.
3. Creativity. Buying what’s locally available means adventuring into a world of foods that you might not see at your typical grocery store. Push the envelope and try new things. Creativity in the kitchen and on your plate is sure to follow.
2. Flavor. Once you’ve tasted the difference in flavor of ripe, local produce and artfully crafted food products, it will be hard to go back to the grocery store for anything else.
1. Fulfillment. Eating good food just feels better. Food signifies so much more than sustenance for our bodies. It represents a set of values of a society, a sense of identity and place. Putting better food on our plates satisfies not only our taste buds but our sense of compassion, higher consciousness and personal fulfillment.
Stefanie Angstadt is a blogger, farmer and food enthusiast who grew up in Spring Lake. To read Stefanie's blog, visit www.happybeets.com.