A big part of leading a green lifestyle involves putting your money where your mouth is. Today’s tip and the pun was intended, thank you very much is about making a difference by buying produce from local farms.
The local food movement is known by a number of different names, but the concept is simple: buying products from local farms creates less of an impact on the environment, and supports the farming industry in your area.
In many cases, buying local food is no more time consuming than buying food from far away. Most stores, supermarkets included, will indicate where the food they’re selling has come from. Buying local will simply mean choosing local tomatoes over exotic ones, for example and altering your diet, possibly, as the seasons change.
Find your local farmer’s market, and you’re very likely off to a good start.
Choose local food, and you’re helping to cut down on transportation and associated efforts, including long-term refrigeration, the use of preservatives and pesticides, and so on. Your food will probably also taste better, considering it’s had less of a journey from the farm to your plate.
While the terms are by no means interchangeable, the local food movement is generally tied into concepts like organic farming and fair-trade farming but a farm can certainly be one and not the others.
More relevant to the local food concept is the slow food movement, a direct attack on today’s fast food culture, which encourages restaurant-goers to take the time to enjoy their meals, and to make good eating a priority. Slow food chefs are generally also local produce shoppers.
And now, a jump back to last week:
Thanks to reader Miranda Spencer, who wrote in with a response to Friday’s Green Tip on Solar Panels.
Miranda says, Absurd rules and regulations in their communities can prevent people from installing solar panels and other energy savers. So before you build, you need to ensure that you won’t be fined or evicted from your neighborhood and if such rules exist, fight them.
Thanks, Miranda, for this good advice. Check out Miranda’s blog, the Green Goddess Gazette.
