Why You’ll Love Eating Local

You’ve likely heard the advice to “eat like a local” when it comes to traveling somewhere new but what about right in your own backyard?

Turns out that it still rings true, even when at home. Shopping at and eating food supplied by national retailers can be a convenient choice and one that may be more budget friendly depending on you and your family’s needs. Note: The increase in cost of locally grown food comes from accounting for the true price of growing food and paying our workers a fair wage. We recognize that it can be a burden for some, which is why we advocate (or should we say agvocate?) for doing what you can, when you can.

But if you’re able to be a locavore, even on occasion, you’ll be positively contributing to your local food system, economy, environment, and more.

This is largely in part because when you eat locally grown food, you get the food right from the farmer without any of the middlemen. That direct connection also means that you can know that your dollars are being spent directly on supporting the farm as an investment so that they can continue to produce year after year. This positive cycle also helps to stimulate the local economy by keeping money in the hands of, well, the locals. 

Eating local also means that your food doesn’t have to travel far distances to get to you, like in the case of those national retailers, which means avoiding a lot of excess gas and emissions. Speaking of freshness, eating local gives you the opportunity to enjoy each season’s bounty straight away, freshly harvested at peak ripeness. Though the national retailers may have an individual crop for sale for longer, you’ll savor every bite even more knowing you’ll have to wait to enjoy it again next year.

This is a fundamental component to sustainable agriculture, where the local ecosystem is prioritized over the needs of the bottom line and we work with the land to produce food in a manner that will regenerate and revitalize the land over time so that we can continue on for generations to come.  

This all may seem like an overwhelming concept and you might be wondering how you can positively contribute to the local food system. One of the very best ways to dip your toe into eating locally and seasonally is to sign up for a CSA. CSA stands for community supported agriculture. As a CSA member, you participate in your own food supply by committing to share in the harvest of our farm. Your purchase of a share at the beginning of the season ensures that each week, you’ll get first pick of our seasonal vegetables, meats and eggs. It’s like a subscription to our farm’s harvest, from a farmer and source you know and trust.

This is the final week to sign up for our Summer CSA, which kicks off later this month! You can learn more about share options and sign up here.