Eating local is a simple change, but can make a difference in a few aspects. Food is able to stay on the vine longer and grow more nutrients for your body and money you spend locally will recycle through your community. Locavorism is becoming more popular and farmers’ markets a high demand since more people are discovering the benefits of it. Overall, it proves to be better for everyone when you buy and eat locally grown food.
Eating locally grown food is better for you. When food is grown far away, packaged harshly, and shipped in less-than-pleasant conditions, it isn’t as fresh when it actually reaches your family’s dinner plates. Food that travels farther distances doesn’t have the strong vitamins and minerals our bodies need because “[f]ood begins to lose nutrition as soon as it is harvested” (Source B). But local farmers are able to sustain the nutrition by allowing the food to “ripen until the last possible minute on the vine” (Source A), and you receive fresh food with nutritious vitamins and minerals in full.
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When you buy an apple at a farmer’s market nearby, although you may pay a little extra, your money is well spent on your delicious and nutritious produce, as well as paying that farmer for his hard work. When you buy an apple at Walmart, supposing you may pay less, your money is spent on mediocre tasting produce that was shipped from far away, in a land where Walmart promotes cheap labor. Your money should be spent inside your community because “a dollar spent locally generates twice as much income for the local economy.” But “[w]hen businesses are not owned locally, money leaves the community at every transaction,” according to a study by the New Economics Foundation in London (quoted in Source
The Local food chain can be defined as getting your food from a farm that’s local or near by you. Quoting a passage, it says, “Almost everything the farm uses is grown on the farm, there are no pesticides, no artificial fertilizers, no pollution, and no extra waste. Everything is recycled.” This is showing how sustainable local farms are natural and healthy. It shows how the local sustainable
Locavorism has both strong supporters and vehement opposers, as most trends do. Overall, eating locally isn’t a bad idea: it can connect you with community farmers and help you to choose healthier meals. However — as with all topics — it isn’t all black and white. Many common locavorism arguments aren’t grounded in science, and people exalt it while blindly ignoring the aforementioned issues. People considering locavorism should ensure that they consider the negatives before beginning a locavore
Global warming, pollution, and dwindling fossil fuels will always be the conservational problems if nobody starts to buy local grown foods. Katherine Spriggs, author of the essay, “On Buying Local,” explains how having a large variety of foods at all times of the year is not worth the negative effects in the communities and their economies (Spriggs 92). As a community, many environmental challenges are being faced; Buying local will help bring advantages to not only the environment, but also the small towns and the
America’s vast food supply has increased. Foods that were once hard to come by can be found in almost all the grocery stores across the nation. In the article “What’s Eating America”, by Michael Pollan, who is a professor of journalism, explains how the bounty of food came about. He writes about the creation of synthetic fertilizer and how it was used to fertilize crops and essentially make all the foods today. He writes about the harmful effects that are occurring as a result of the chemically made fertilizer. In another article called written by Katherine Spriggs, a student from Stanford University, she writes about the benefits of buying local versus becoming dependent on the import of food. She feels that buying from local farms
The growing locavore movement suggests that local food is key for healthy eating and community growth. One would imagine that the closer the source of one’s food is from, the healthier and more sustainable it is, right? However, this is not the case. In the set of locavore articles, the authors provide information to show that the locavore movement brings about issues involving inefficiency, energy use, and impracticality.
Buying local is the new slogan of producers and sellers selling their foods in the food market. There are a few stances that can be taken such as not bothering to care about where the food came from, getting what can be purchased within reason, and the extreme locavore. Although eating local and organic is desirable, it is improbable to create a sustainable lifestyle with the given difficulties.
The customers that buy from local sustainable farms know how their food is grown and harvested. At the Polyface farm Joel does not have walls on his slaughter house, this way people can come and see how their next meal is killed in a humane way. The people “don’t need USDA to ensure that the meat they’re buying has been humanely and cleanly processed,”(208) because they can watch with their own eyes how the meat is slaughtered. Industrial industries protest that selling produce locally can not get food to everyone around the US. Shipping produce across the country effects the foods taste. Also when customers go to the far, to pick out their own food they get the produce fresh and local. Local farmers on sustainable farms will make a bigger profit out of their produce because they do not have to put all their money into buying chemicals and fertilizers, this is good for the produce and farmers.
To conclude, our current way of agricultural life is not sustainable. The article “What’s for supper” has made me realize that if I hope for a better future for generations to come I should support a locally sourced lifestyle. This article is an eye opener to me and proved to me the importance of supporting locally grown produce. Locally grown produce supports the environment as well as jobs for people in the community. The current system takes a toll on every species on the planet. Humans are overproducing on a massive scale and are wasting close to half of our supplies and
Locavores are consumers of locally grown or produced products. Eating fresh foods from their local farmer’s market can improve income twice as much for its economy. This is important because people give away their money to companies that could instead be giving it to benefit their community. Gogoi Pallavi the author of The Rise of the Locavore states, “It’s a movement that is gradually reshaping the business of growing...local food movement has already accomplished something almost no
The locavore movement has become increasingly popular over the last decade. Locavores are people who prefer to eat food that is locally grown and doesn’t travel long distances before getting to their plates. This thought process is slowly changing the way people eat and the ideals people consider when choosing food to eat. Along with this fresh perspective on where our food comes from, the movement provides a innovative ideal towards what is sustainable and what is not sustainable. While the definition of local is dependent on the buyer the effect is the same. The locavore movement has a positive impact on the local communities through improving the income and number of local farms that fosters good communities, and increasing the nutritional value of food eaten.
In the end, it becomes troublesome to go grocery shopping. Likewise, this ties into the idea of environment. Which is more environmentally friendly: to walk to a local Whole Foods or to drive to the “local” farmer’s market? Many would say buying local reduces waste due to transportation; nonetheless, a chart from the magazine Conservation Magazine proves that a majority of gas emissions actually comes from the production of the food (Source D). Transportation is low already, so why should we add to that by traveling far distances? Becoming a true locavore for an environmental reason is not worth the efforts because the changes are very miniscule To become a true locavore has many incentives, but there are other reasons that influence can someone to dedicate a portion of their diet to local foods.
Local farming is healthier than eating processed foods. Organic foods have more nutrients in the food than processed foods. The author says, "A regular trip to a farmer's market is one of the best ways to connect with where your food comes from. Meeting and talking to farmers and food artisans is a great opportunity to learn more about how and where food is produced." The author also says, "Buying from the local farmer helps safeguard your health. Knowing where your food comes from and how it is grown enables you to choose safe food. Buy food from local farmers you trust. The farmer then circulates his profits throughout the community with local merchants creating a cycle that helps to build a strong local economy." This means that local farming is better than processed foods and people just care about their health and how they can stay healthy.
During the first week of class, four readings were assigned. One of the readings, “Food and Eating: Some Persisting Questions,” by Sidney Mintz, discusses the paradoxes of food. Although food seems like a straightforward concept, it is actually extremely complicated. According to Mintz, there are five paradoxes, including: the importance of food to one’s survival, yet we take it for granted, how people stick to their foodways, but are willing to change, whether the government should allow people to freely choose food or if they should protect the people through regulations, the difference in food meanings according to gender, and the morality of eating certain foods. All of these paradoxes give people questions to think about, making this an extremely philosophical look at food studies. It also mentions that food must be viewed through the cultural context that it is in, which became important in “The Old and New World Exchange”, by Mintz, and “Maize as a Culinary Mystery”, by Stanley Brandes. These discuss the diffusion of foods after 1492 in different ways. The Mintz reading gives an overview of all of the foods spread from the Americas to the Old World, and vice-a-versa, but does not go terribly in depth on the social changes and effects of specific foods. Brandes focuses on the cultural impact of specifically maize on the European diet, noticing that most Western Europeans shunned it. He studies the cultural implications of this, concluding that maize was not accepted
If we all took the time to do the easy research to buy local and support our community, we can visualize a healthy community both economically and physically. Less traffic and allergies and more fresh produce! According to greenupgrader.com one of the top reasons to buy local is because small local businesses are the largest employers nationally. Plus the more jobs you have in your local community the less people are going to have to commute which means more time and less traffic and pollution. Another benefit of buying local is Competition and
The way we eat food has changed drastically in the past few decades. When I think of the process of how our food is made and produced, I typically think of a farm with animals laying around, eating grass, content with everything. Also, I picture ripe red tomatoes, apples, and sweet smelling fruit being pick right when it is ripened so it can get to our grocery stores. This is typically how most people picture our food coming from a farm. It is how they want us to picture it, because it is a happy image: but, it is far from the reality of how things are.