Once separated from its source, a higher rate of respiration occurs in the product, resulting in moisture loss, nutrient degradation, and potential microbial spoilage. Instead, they have the freedom to select, grow, and harvest their produce. Thus they can ensure the highest qualities of freshness, nutrition, and taste. This food is bred for taste and not coated with chemicals to withstand the long commute.
Supermarket produce is grown and processed with its shelf life in mind, and not necessarily its nutritional benefits. These products have been transported over long distances and will often have been sitting in distribution centres before arriving at the store and eventually making it onto the shelves. Eating locally-produced food that has been able allowed to ripen fully.
Not only does this give us food rich in colour and flavour, it means that our body gets the highest nutritional value possible. Farmers can only grow what the season will support. Before transporting goods over long distances became commonplace we had no option but to eat seasonally.
As a result, we based our meal choices on the ingredients we had available. Luckily, the natural cycle of produce is perfectly designed to support our health. Are local foods more nutritious? Did you know? No growth hormones are given to pigs, poultry or dairy cows in Canada. Annual fruit consumption in Canada rose to Berries, in particular blueberries and cranberries, are becoming more popular all the time. The consumption of vegetables such as asparagus, eggplants, kohlrabi and sweet potatoes are slowly but steadily increasing on the menu.
Food grown in distant locations has the potential for food safety issues at harvesting, washing, shipping and distribution. Local growers can tell you how the food was grown. You can ask what practices they use to raise and harvest the crops. When you know where your food comes from and who grew it, you know a lot more about that food.
Did you find this article useful? Please tell us why Submit. Farmers and futurists ponder how to feed 9 billion people inhabiting Earth by Battle Creek community celebrated good food on Halloween. However, if allowed to ripen on the plant, many fruits will have a better flavour and higher nutritional content, this is only possible with locally grown food.
Our veg box customers here at Square Mile Farms receive their produce a couple hours after harvest. On many occasions they have mentioned that our vegetables and herbs have lasted in excess of a week in their fridge without losing their crisp, fresh quality. By shopping locally the money you spend will help to support local producers and create local jobs. If we want to ensure that we have a strong network of local farmers, we have to start supporting them.
Right now this may not seem to be a pressing issue, since we have so much produce to choose from, but the importance of resilient local food systems will become more apparent in the future. There is uncertainty in the future of our food system and there are many reasons why we could fall into food insecurity. There are incredible amounts of emissions associated with producing, packaging, and transporting food all around the world.
Local smallholder farmers are generally far more sustainable than industrial scale farms, not only will they have fewer transport emissions associated with their food, but it is more likely that they are practicing sustainable land management practices. Smallhold local farmers tend to use methods like cover cropping, crop rotation and intercropping with trees to put nutrients back into the soil for the health of their crops and land, this traps carbon in the earth. I hope these four points have given you an understanding of the benefits of buying local produce, from the opportunities to obtain higher quality produce and the potential health effects, to the knock on impact to the health of the planet and the benefits of supporting your local economy.
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