Several reasons to eat fresh local sustainable food…

“The advantage of sustainable agriculture is knowing where and how your food is grown and processed and that one is eating healthy nutritious food. It supports local farmers and merchants which helps the community,” Connecticut farmer Nancy Livensparger says.

Eating sustainably saves family farms. According to Sustainable Table, “since 1950, over 2 million farms that raised hogs have disappeared. If this continues, we might lose all our farms, except for a few industrial facilities that will dictate what we eat. By eating sustainably, you’re supporting a true American tradition that’s part of our cultural heritage – the small, independent family farmer,”

A 2005 report in the Journal of Food Policy found that eating local food is better for the environment in terms of pollution and air quality than even eating organic food because it tends to travel less.

According to New York Times best selling author Jo Robinson, grass-fed beef has two to six times more omega-3’s than factory farmed, grain-fed meat making it healthier than factory farm beef.  Erin Rosas of Rosas Farms in Citra, FL agrees: “With the media finally starting to catch up, there’s more evidence that low fat high Omega 3 grass-fed meats are the best choice. What you eat can affect your grandchildren ladies. The true price of cheap meat is unveiled, each and every day.”

By eating sustainable meat you are supporting the humane ethical treatment of animals. In contrast according to Care2.com “factory farms treat animals like commodities, and they are kept in tightly confined pens and often never move more than a few feet their whole lives.”

It supports a fair working wage for farmers and farm workers. According to Sustainable Food Lab millions of farmers and farm workers live in poverty but the sustainable food philosophy works to reserve that.

Eating sustainably provides for story material: “A great story is to go to a local farmer’s market in the summer and find a vegetable you have never seen before and start talking to the person who grew it, brought it to the market, and cooks it,” says Betty Ryder the first woman editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester, Conn.

People swear sustainable locally grown food tastes better and the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project has a reason for why that may be so: “Food grown in your own community was probably picked within the past day or two. It’s crisp, sweet and loaded with flavor. Several studies have shown that the average distance food travels from farm to plate is 1,500 miles. In a week-long (or more) delay from harvest to dinner table, sugars turn to starches, plant cells shrink, and produce loses its vitality.”

Image of carrots courtesy of Fire Ring Farm.