Planet and Community Preservation with Local Food
E A T L O C A L.... what does this mean to you?
Eating Local is a method of maintaining food security. Developing relationships with the farmers in my local town and region that can provide my staple groceries year round, and finding those farm stores or smaller grocers that occasionally bring in seasonal tropical fruits and veggies from verified and sustainable growers. Why is this important you may ask?
Well seeing that the average meal on any individuals plate has traveled over 1,500 M I L E S in order to be on their dinner table, you can not deny the impact that it is having on our planet and various resources.
Another reason is in the 1,500 M I L E journey, most of the fruits and vegetables are harvested prior to peek ripeness, meaning they lack essential nutrients and flavor (which is one of the many reason individuals do not develop a palate / likeness for fruits and vegetables... they do not know how they are actually suppose to taste).
The third reason it’s important to find those local and regional growers is in the pursuit to waste less and need less packaging. On average 20% of the food produced in America alone is wasted and thrown in the trash (often times with plastic wrapping still on it). This breaks down to 225,290 P O U N D S of wasted food annually per person. What does this look like in terms of the amount of people that could feed?
Approximately 2 B I L L I O N extra people could be fed annually from our perfectly good /wasted food items. That is a heck of a lot of people that could be nourished every day if we simply started getting to know the local growers around us, started reducing the number of miles our food travels, and ultimately resulting in reducing our waste.
You can say that the hashtag #eatlocal has become sort of a fad over the last few years, but with the overwhelming data coming through, it remains just that. A fad that most individuals do not understand the full benefit or impact it may have on our planet, our local economies, and communities.
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References:
How Far Does Your Food Travel to Get to Your Plate? (2018, February 5). Retrieved from https://cuesa.org/learn/how-far-does-your-food-travel-get-your-plate
Troitino, C. (2018, April 23). Americans Waste About A Pound Of Food A Day, USDA Study Finds. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinatroitino/2018/04/23/americans-waste-about-a-pound-of-food-a-day-usda-study-finds/#6a03895f4ec3