VOCAL ABOUT LOCAL FRESH WHEN IT COMES TO FOOD

WRITER: MARYANN HOLDEN, CHHC AADP LPN

Living in Florida, we should feel extremely blessed to have access to locally grown food year round.

Local food is fresher and tastes better than food that is trucked or flown in from thousands of miles away. There is nothing quite like enjoying a salad made with fresh lettuce and tomatoes. Your body lights up with these vital nutrients. Think there’s no difference? There is a big difference in how it tastes and how you feel after you eat it.

Local foods are seasonal and taste better. Having only certain foods at different times of the year leads to greater appreciation. In-season, locally grown tomatoes burst with flavor that’s easy to forget if you eat only tomatoes artificially ripened with gas. Fresh-picked corn in season tastes best when you haven’t eaten any in nine or 10 months. There’s nothing like the very first bite of the summer.

Eating locally means eating seasonally, and with local farm markets, you get only what is in season.

LOCAL FOODS USUALLY HAVE LESS ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT THAN THOSE SHIPPED IN.

Look for farmers who follow organic and sustainable growing practices and energy use to minimize your food’s environmental impact. Eating locally preserves green space and farmland. The age-old environmental question of where your food comes from is bigger than its “carbon footprint.” By buying foods grown and raised closer to where you live, you help maintain farmland and green space in your area.

LOCAL FOODS PROMOTE FOOD SAFETY.

The fewer steps between your food’s source and your table, the less chance there is of contamination. Also, when you know where your food comes from and who grows it, you know a lot more about the food. During the E. coli outbreak in spinach in 2006, I knew the spinach in my refrigerator was safe because I knew it was grown by the farmer at the local farm market.

LOCAL FOODS HELP SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL ECONOMY.

Money spent with local farmers, growers and restaurants stays close to home. It works to build your local economy instead of being handed over to a corporation in another city, state, or country. Since the food moves through fewer hands, more of the money you spend tends to get to the people growing it.

LOCAL FOODS CREATE COMMUNITY.

Knowing where your food comes from connects you to the people who raise and grow it. Instead of having a single relationship — to a big supermarket — you develop smaller connections to more food sources. I have noticed that when I go to the local farm market each week, I see the pride on the face of the farmer who has planted the seeds, watered the plants, cultivated the crops, harvested the produce and happily shares the abundance with the local community and does so with love for what they are doing. It’s called vitamin L, and it is naturally added to your food and you can actually taste it with each bite.

the and shares the abundance with the local and does so with love for what are it, like it

Try it, you’ll like it.