In the end...

This month has been hard just because local food is expensive for simple things. One apple is one dollar as opposed to two or three apples you can get at Shop-rite. Local foods also limit the types of food you can have just because Mother Nature is not ok with every food being available to grow year round, so I had to make due with the same variety for the month, which gets old very quickly.

I used to think my mother was crazy when she went out of her way to join a CSA, grow ridicules foods in our back yard, and pay twice the amount for basically the same food. That is why I decided to research more on the impact of local foods for my senior project. And after researching this I have noticed all of the aspects of local foods, which do appeal to me very much! In the end, I have decided that my mom had a point, or I hopped on the crazy-wagon along side her.

Wrap Up!

 Average food in America travels 1500 miles before it hits your table: local foods travel on average 65 miles from start to finish.

Average small farm owners/ farmers are 45 years old and have 14 years of experience in the field.

Female farmers do exist; in fact, almost half of the countries farmers are women.

Cows that are fed grass as opposed to those who have been fed corn have a lower cholesterol. It is so much lower, in fact, that if a person has a cholesterol problem and have been restricted to 1 or 2 portions of meat a month, they can have meat 2 to 3 times a week. The combined meats on both sides will be about equal.

Local farmers are more likely to focus on taste and nutritional value than durability of the plant, which corporate farms are more interested in, making local foods delicious and nutritious.

Average net return per acre for these CSA farmers is $2,467. This figure is quite high when compared to return per acre of corn ($172.11), soybeans ($134.46), and wheat ($38.10) in the United States.

CSA’s are a good thing for all involved!

Local foods lead to more variety

They taste better and have better nutritional value

Local foods are made cleaner and keep the eater healthier!

Meat is WAYYY more popular now than it was in the 70’s

$1 spent locally generates twice the amount than $1 spent to large corporations

Organic foods have more of an environmental impact than non-organic local foods

Local foods cost more, but if we shifted our purchases to include more local foods, costs would go down.

CSA

CSA: Community Supported Agriculture

The basis of this idea is that there is a farmer who grows foods. Individuals buy a share of the crops the farmer grows in the beginning of the summer. The farmer uses the money toward his farm, grows food, transports it to a central location in the specific community, and the individual’s pick up their weekly share.

The benefits of CSA:

            Due to close ties with the farmer, you know exactly who your food is coming from. Also, many farms have farm days where members of the CSA can go up to the farm and pick some crops that are ready, or just tour the area so they know where it comes from as well.

            Crops are local which lead to less travel, but they are transported via one vehicle which leads to even less air pollution.         

            You are stimulating the local economy.

            You learn all about new foods like ground cherries and bok choi!

Ten Reasons for Local Foods

We know whom our food is from. Local foods come from people just like us from the places we are used to. We are supporting people we know, and our purchases have a direct effect on the farmers as opposed to corporate farms whom see little money because the corporations take it.

Less Travel leads to healthier food The further food has to travel, the more susceptible it is to picking up bacteria and viruses.

Better variety Since local farmers have to abide by the laws of nature, they cannot supply peaches all year round, because peaches are only in season during the summer months. Having these rules to abide by, farmers have more time to experiment with other foods, which people would not necessarily think of such as salad turnips, senshu apples, and ground cherries.

Local foods are better for the environment Local foods have less space to travel from farm to table. Less travel leads to less fossil fuels being excreted into the atmosphere.

Nutritional value The longer a food is off the vine, bush, tree, or where ever the food stems from, the less nutrition the food has. Eat it fresh that day (only possible when local) the best possible nutrition available from that food!

Taste You have to admit, fresh fruit tastes way better that that over processed frozen stuff they sell in the supermarket!

More time to ripen Because local foods have less space to travel, they are allowed to stay on the vine longer, thus when they get to your table, they are as ripe as can be, and taste fantastic.

Local foods trump long distance organic A study performed by Food Policy, a journal in March of 2005 showed that the miles organic food has to travel to get to your table outweighs the damage done by local crops which have seen little pesticides.

Local foods stimulate local economy The money put down to pay for local foods go right into the pocket of the local farmers, who then pay for things around town to stimulate their farm. It’s a chain reaction. Local food stimulates local economy.

Local foods prevent further development When one buys local foods the money goes back to the farm to keep it up and running. Developers cannot dig up their ripe tomatoes and put in a few dozen-cookie cutter mc-mansions. 

Why local foods: health edition!

Fun facts about large corporate farms:

            In attempts to make more money, corporations are using unethical means to produce more meat, some of which include hormones which can be passed onto the people who eat them.

            In addition to hormones, the owners of these corporate farms do their best to clean the stalls of the animals as little as possible to avoid wasting time and money, leaving the animals standing in a pool of their own waste, which brings a whole host of bacteria and other germs that are then introduced into our food system.

            When, in the off chance that they do, the companies give anti-bacterial medicine to the animals but only enough to ward off the original strand, not the stronger changed strand of the bacteria. The results of such actions have lead to the deadly strand of eColi.

Thanks corporate farms!

Information from Food Inc. and the New York Times article Safety of Beef Processing Supply is Questioned

Then and Now: How the American diet has changed

Protein:
Between 1970 and 1995, Americans red meat consumption fell 13%, while Poultry rose 86% and fish and shellfish-27%.
The fish and poultry we now eat make up 25% total fat and 37% of the saturated fat in our diets compared to 35% and 37% in 1970.
In 1996, each individuals meat consumption averaged 191 lb/ year. That average now is around 200.

Dairy Products:
Replaced by the availability of soft drinks, milk intake has gone down 22% whole milk, in particular is down 45% since 1970. Whole milk, in 1970 represented 81% of all milk consumed. It has now dropped to represent only 36%. Thought to be largely due to the increasingly popular pizza, cheese intake has gone up about 250% (excluding cottage cheese) since 1970.

Cream products have declined 36% from averaging 9.1 lb/ year, to 5.9 lb/ year.
Eggs have shown a decrease from 403 eggs per person per year in 1945, to 309 in 1970, to 236 in 1997.

Grains:
Since the FDA has been keeping record, was in 1909 when the average American ate a record breaking 300 lb. of grains per year. In 1970 that number was 135, 147 lb in the mid 80’s, and 192 lb by the mid 90’s.
75% of our grains come from wheat, though in 1985 we ate 6% more wheat than we do now.

Fats and Sugars:
The average American eats 150 lb of caloric sweeteners now. Compare that to the 122 lbs consumed on average in the 70’s.  
from 1970 to 1994, Americans doubled their coffee intake.

1970- your typical caloric intake for any given day: 3,300. 1994- your typical caloric intake for any given day: 3,800. The suggested caloric intake per day is around 2,000 per day to maintain a healthy weight. That is a lot of extra calories.

Overall, the size of the American diet has increased 22% since 1970. Think about it. Today, our meals are 22% bigger, we eat 22% MORE food than we did 40 years ago. That says a lot about our waistbands.
In 1993 there were 1,755 farmers markets, by 1995 that number increased to 2,116. Way to go local America!

Some perks about local foods...

The New Economics Foundation in London performed a study which showed that a dollar spent locally generates twice the amount in the local economy.

By getting rid of the middle men, local foods are handled less and therefore given more opportunity to ripen, so it gets to your table as fresh as can be!

The longer the food is off the vine, the less neutritional value it has.

The March 2005 edition of Food Policy demonstrated how buying organic foods that have traveled thousands of miles to your table, has more of an environmental impact than getting non-organic local food. 

You know who you are getting your food from!

When a food has little travel time between the farm and your table, there is less possibility for contamination