Have you ever tasted a piece of fruit straight off the tree? We hope you have.  If so, you probably know that food picked fresh from the tree is far tastier than most super market varietals. Taste is one of the reasons to eat local. Tomatoes aren’t in season, well, anywhere in the United States right now. (Although we will concede that there are people with greenhouses who are able to grow their tomatoes year round, but we’re talking about sun-grown here, people!) So if you pick up a tomato at the supermarket right now, your tomato is most likely coming from another country. Vine-ripened? We think not.

And think about all of the oil that it took to bring that out-of-season tomato to you!

Supporting local farmers and the local economy is another great reason to buy local food.

But our favorite reason to eat local has to do with the variety of food.  People often get in ruts when it comes to eating the same thing over and over again. Eating local brings you back in touch with the seasons and encourages you to think outside of the box when it comes to your meals.  If you can’t have strawberries during the winter, why not try a persimmon instead? And wouldn’t they taste wonderful on a salad? Normally we would throw berries or pears on a salad.  But in November and December we can get persimmons fresh from the tree.

There are a ton of reasons to eat local.

Learn more about it

Websites:  100milediet.org, or eatlocalchallenge.com

Books: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Cookbooks: The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters