It’s no secret that we are all feeling the price crunch in the checkout line.
The food inflation rate is debatable, but we can safely say food prices have gone up substantially in the last four years.
It’s tempting to buy groceries at the cheapest location, but is there a greater untold cost to that decision?
Groceries used to come from backyard gardens, neighbors, and local small farms. Until recent years, it simply wasn’t possible to get substantial amounts of food imported elsewhere.
Now, we have the infrastructure to import foods from all over the world…the ability to buy broccoli at the drop of a hat or raspberries in January.
This is a terrific convenience, but it also has a cost.
Local farms are being pushed out of the market (or bought out) by their bigger competitors, and we aren’t, by and large, eating foods that are grown local to us.
So why exactly should we prioritize local food when it isn’t as convenient as going to the grocery store and is often more expensive than comparable grocery store items?
Local food has a unique nutrient profile
Food grown in your area has unique nutrients and information that you need. Specific beneficial bacteria, pollen information, and information from sunlight in stored in the food.
Food grown at your latitude will have the correct information for your body. This is one reason why local raw milk and raw honey can be so beneficial for treating allergies. It has the information your body needs to heal itself.
2. Food is most nutritious right at picking time
Food is most nutritious when it’s picked at its naturally ripened time. After picking, many of the nutrients, like vitamin C, degrade. Strawberries, for example, lose most of their vitamin C within 48 hours of being picked.
Food that is being shipped in from South America or California simply can’t compete with food grown in your backyard or nearby.
3. Big box organics (Walmart, etc.) are crowding out small farms
During a recent podcast episode of the Real Organic Food Podcast [Lisa Held ROP#181], a food researcher and journalist relayed the following information about Walmart and their Organics program.
Walmart cuts costs by under paying farmers, and small farmers can’t sell at Walmart’s prices and cover their costs, much less make a profit.
Walmart cuts costs everywhere they can, and this artificially lower prices from what the true cost of food should be.
Walmart is the biggest vendor of organic food worldwide, and 1 in 3 grocery dollars in the US are spent at Walmart. This means that they have a huge power in setting the frame for what is a fair and reasonable price.
The truth is there aren’t any small farms selling to Walmart, and shopping with big box grocery stores can actively hurt the local economy.
4. Shopping locally keeps money in your local economy
It’s been shown that dollars spent locally tend to stay in the local economy for many more transactions than do dollars spent at multinational corporations.
The best way to build resilient food systems that actually serve our health is to shop locally and get to know your farmer.