Why Buy Local Food?
I don't know if local foods taste so good because they are usually fresher than imported foods or because I know where they come from. There's something inexplicably satisfying about being able to name where all the food on my plate comes from. "Selema grew this, this and this. Perry ground the wheat, I made the jam and Melissa raised the beef."
Buying local foods is one of the most powerful ways you can live more sustainably. Eating more local foods decreases the amount of fossil fuels used to get your food from the farm to you. Of course, if you are driving 40km to a farm and back every week, you're not saving much on fuel emissions. But if you are part of a group of households that order from me and I make one trip to the farms to pick up your foods, then we can feel good about the amount of emissions we saved from going into our air. Eating local foods just makes sense. For an in-depth discussion of the benefits of buying local foods, read The End of Food, In Defense of Food, or The 100 Mile Diet.
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