Making healthy and environmentally conscious food choices for you and your family can be downright confusing for most people. For environmental and health reasons, more and more evidence is pointing to the benefits of eating locally grown organic food whenever possible. If locally produced organic foods aren’t available, then locally grown is the next best option.

According to a British report in the Journal Food Policy that was featured in the BBC News, locally produced food is usually a greener option than organic food, and the number of miles that food travels before it reaches consumers is more significant than we previously thought. This study calculated the costs of food transportation in terms of environmental damage. It can be found at:
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4312591.stm)

As evidenced by the recent spinach E. coli outbreak, large Agribusiness farming can cause serious national health threats. The source of this outbreak was the spinach grown in just a few counties in California, yet the impact of the tainted spinach was felt in more than 25 states. Not only does this type of large corporate farming operation pose an easy terrorism threat to our nation’s food supply, but this method of farming often exploits workers and is harmful to the environment and to the people who live near these farms.

According to the World Watch Institute (www.worldwatch.org), most food in the United States travels between 1,500 and 2,500 miles from the farm to the table. The food loses it nutritional value the longer it sits, and that lessens the health benefits to the consumer. According to www.foodroutes.com, fruits and vegetables often spend 7-14 days in transit before arriving in your grocery store. Consequently, the high costs of fossil fuel energy incurred by transporting food long distances are immense, and the amount of energy that food produces when it arrives at its destination is far less than the amont of energy needed to deliver that food to its final destination.

The large energy expenditure used to transport food long distances requires subsidation, negatively affects the environment and contributes to global warming. Moreover, this practice adversely affects local economies and keeps money out of local communities. It also hurts small farmers who can’t keep pace with the cheap production of mass produced food. 

Even more disturbing is the fact that fruits and vegetables that are grown to be large, mature quickly, look uniform and ship well are heavily fertilized (often with sewage sludge), heavily sprayed with herbicides and pesticides, and may be watered with sources tainted by runoff. Recently there has been much controversy over the water supply from California wells, Lake Mead and the Colorado River, as they have been contaminated with Perchlorate, a fuel propellant for rockets and missiles. Perchlorate is frequently found in California oranges, lettuces and mustard greens.  For more information please take a look at: 
http://www.perchlorate-water-contamination.com/faq.htm

It is good to know which fruits and vegetables contain the highest amounts of pesticides so that when you aren't able to buy locally grown or organic produce, you will know which types of fruits and vegetables are the healthiest. The website www.foodnews.org indicates that apples, cherries, grapes, peaches, strawberries, nectarines, pears, red raspberries, bell peppers, celery, spinach and potatoes contain the most consistent and the highest levels of pesticides. 

Author Jay Weinstein, author of The Ethical Gourmet, suggests that the best way to identify organic, conventional and genetically modified produce in your grocery store is to look at the product code (PLU) produce stickers. If the number is four digits it is conventional produce. If it has a nine in front of it, it is organic, and if it is preceded by the number eight, it has been genetically modified.

Since we don’t know the long term effects of human consumption of pesticides or genetically modified foods, it is best to avoid them. According to the book Eat to Beat Cancer, in the past 50 years the occurrences of certain types of cancers have increased by as much as 400%. Eating a diet rich in fiber and nutrients, and low in saturated fats while minimizing our exposure to chemicals is of the utmost importance for our health.

I’m not suggesting that if you live in the North you should never have bananas, oranges or lemons, but I do recommend reducing your dependence on the need for imported foods. Simple choices like choosing to drink locally produced apple cider in the winter rather than orange juice, consuming seasonal produce, buying local eggs, meat or cheeses, and sweetening foods with local maple syrup or honey are things that can have a positive impact on your health and the environment.

The Eat Well Guide is an excellent  resource for finding locally raised meat, poultry, dairy and eggs from farms in the US and Canada. The healthiest foods are those that are raised sustainably, are pasture-raised, grass-fed and organic, and do not include antibiotics or added hormones. This guide can be found at:
http://www.eatwellguide.org/index.cfm

If local dairy products are not available in your area, then try to purchase dairy items from reputable companies such as Organic Valley and Stonyfield Farms. These companies have a cooperative of farmers that produce the goods within the United States, and they treat their animals with integrity and raise them organically.

Money spent on locally produced goods and services stays in the community longer, creates employment opportunities, and supports local artisans, farmers and small businesses. A certain amount of trade is necessary and beneficial and we do so with our company all the time. We are located in the Northeast and we try to purchase as much as we can within a 200 mile radius. We obtain local foods and non-food items that are chemical free such as honey, maple syrup, mustards, dressings, jams, fiber, pottery, baskets, candles, soaps and lotions. We then branch out to obtain as much as we can from small business people and Native peoples within the US and Canada, and our goal is to support local communities within North America. Our cosmetics and herbs come from US based companies that follow ethically based practices and do not utilize animal testing.

We also sell goods that come from their countries of origin such as Africa for Shea butter, cocoa from Costa Rica and Pakistan for Himalayan salt crystals. The companies that we deal with are either certified fair trade or have shown a record of building sustainable local communities. These companies also have reputations for treating the people who produce their goods fairly, and they use organic farming methods.    

In order to conserve energy and to avoid double shipping we use affiliations with our internet sales for our Himalayan salt products, organic gourmet chocolates, geodes, Arbonne cosmetics, Waiora’s natural cellular defense and some of our herbs. This means that these products come directly from the manufacturer to your home.

We ship our products within the US and Canada with the belief that the community that creates our products holds the same values that we do. Consumption of these products supports community and small businesses, and energetically feels good. We invite you to click on our products page to see what we have to offer.   

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