The State of Local Food with Dean Williamson

Top 10 Reasons To Eat Local Food

By Dean Williamson, 5-08-09

One fascinating part of the “new” local food movement is that I have yet to run across a reason NOT to eat food produced which is produced close to home.  Sure, there are the usual knuckleheads rushing to declaim local food (see the article in Mother Jones) but there are always vociferous and usually shrill (not to mention loud) voices that rise whenever any change to their lives is even mentioned. If only their creativity and imagination were given so much free rein.

I remain convinced that local food is the only sustainable food; for physical and nutritional health, for environmental health, for the health of the land itself, for economic health—for these reasons and more, local is the way.

Among the best reasons to shift to eating locally:

Locally grown produce is healthier.  Most produce eaten in the US travels close to 1500 miles from where it was grown.  (www.leopold.iastate.edu) That means days in a truck or train, in cold storage for days or weeks.  That means “fresh” food has to be picked well ahead of ripeness.  Produce you buy from a local farmer or a local farmer’s market has often been picked within 24 hours of your purchase.  All this affects freshness but also significantly impacts the nutritional value of your food.

Local food supports the local economy.  A dollar spent on local food generates at least twice as much (and up to 4-5 times as much) for the local economy than does a dollar spent in a chain supermarket. (New Economics Foundation in London; Civic Economics). When businesses are not owned locally, money leaves the community at every transaction. 

Local food supports your neighbors. When you buy local food, you help your friends and neighbors—your community—to remain economically viable.

Local food is safer.  Food produced on a small scale is less susceptible to contamination, as is food with less distance to travel from farm to plate.  During the ecoli outbreak from “organic” spinach in 2006, sales of local spinach went WAY up; if you know your farmer, you know your food.

Locally food is real food.  Local food travels less to get to you and is handled far less in transit.  This means that nothing needs to be done to the food to help it survive this travel.  We know that some tomatoes have a gene from flounders, to help them resist the cold temperatures encountered during transit.  I personally like my tomatoes flounder-free.  No preservatives in local produce, either, just real food.

Local food is environmentally smart.  With fewer miles to travel, there is much less fuel used in food transport; with smaller farms, there is much less fuel used in production.  Local growers, to my knowledge, don’t monkey around splicing genes or modifying DNA—they just make food.  And, if your local growers know you want food without pesticides, they’ll do it, too, which means less soil-leaching and fewer chemicals.

Local food is seasonal.  When we eat food that occurs with the seasons, we eat food at their peak taste, when they are the most abundant, and least expensive.  We also save tremendously on the fuel and the environmental costs of bringing in every food all year—think berries in the middle of winter.

Local food is art. Farmers who know their microclimates, their soils and their consumers—and who know that their crops will not be gigantic in yield and will have short shelf lives—are much more likely to experiment with small crops of various fruits and vegetables that would probably never make it to a large supermarket.  Chain supermarkets tend to sell standard “name brand” food: Romaine Lettuce, Red Delicious Apples, Russet Potatoes.  Local producers often play with their crops from year to year, trying out Little Gem Lettuce, Senshu Apples, and Chieftain Potatoes.  Do a taste comparison sometime—although that’s a little unfair to the big supermarkets.

Local food maintains responsible land use.  Supporting farmers in your community means that you also support responsible land development.  When you buy local food, your dollars give tangible, measurable value to local open space - farms and pastures.  You make it economically feasible for open land to remain open.

Local food tastes better.  Remember taste?  For a reminder, do a taste test:  anything from a farmer’s market next to the same chain-grocery item.  You’ll never step foot in the store again.

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