Local Food: What That Means and Why It's Better

Understanding how modern food systems prioritize scale is the first step in making baby steps towards better food choices for your household. We've considered already whether food tastes how it used to or not. The natural question you might be pondering is, “What's other options do I have?”

The differences between large-commercialized farms and small, regenerative farms come in many variations. With the smaller farmer, you experience a much shorter supply chain. You're often able to pick up directly from the farm, though distance is typically a hinderance. The distribution radius is also more condensed with the small-scale farmer. They are often a source for local farm-to-table restaurants and your favorite booth at the farmer's market.

 

Large Scale Farm Process Explained

With large scale farms, seasonal availability isn't a concept because of how far food has the ability to travel. We can have grapes in winter months even if they are out of season because they came from another part of the world where it is still warm there. With the local farmer, you are subject to what can reasonably grow in your region. Tomatoes won't be available in January, but will be abundantly available come summer. When shopping local and smaller, eating with the seasons is to be expected.

Another main difference between small and large farmers is the relational aspect. In our digital world, we are all craving connection more than ever, but rarely find it. Having the option to have a real, in-person relationship with who is providing your home with nutrition is life-changing. Truly knowing your farmer makes an impact on how we interact with our food. Throwing away food that you know it's source of is much different than the disassociation that occurs when we toss the bag of slimy cucumbers from the store. When you've shaken hands with the hands that produced it, you interact with it on a different level.

 

Readily Available vs. In-Season

Shifting our expectations from “this is always readily available” to “that's not in season right now” is a big change from what our current culture is used to. But, the reality is that this is how food was sourced for thousands of years before the age of industry changed it all. Before profits became more important than our health, things were just different. Your favorite fruits and veggies might not be available year-round, and that requires an adjustment.

It also might cost you more to source local food verses grocery-bought. These smaller farms don't have the benefit of scalability to keep their standards high, so they have to charge a bit more to keep their doors open. Actively supporting them is what keeps them going.

 

 

Your planning might look different when you source local food as well. For example, it might require slightly adjusting a recipe by swapping out kale for collards. It will challenge you to try new things you might otherwise ignore.

It's not a perfect system, but it's one your body will thank you for by providing the nutrients you've been craving all along!

How to Source Local Food

There are various ways to access local food. Most farms areas attend regular farmer's markets. Some farms provide CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) boxes. Other options are curated farm home delivery resources like Nourished Market.

Nourished Market was created out of a need to provide farmers and their customers the connection they lacked. Most local farmers in the massive Houston area on on the outskirts, making it tough to make the trip to go out and pick up regular orders of things like raw milk, pasture-raised meat, and fresh eggs. These local farmers also have big jobs that require their days be spent caring for what their raising, whether that be cattle, produce, chickens, or all of the above. They unfortunately have little extra time to provide their customers with their products.

 

 

Nourished Market exists to bridge the gap between the farmer and the consumer and make it easy to access fresher more nutritious goods while providing transparency through it all.

Not everything can be overhauled overnight, but understanding your options changes how you shop.