Local Food

In one of my bookclubs I joined last month, we read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver and The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan. What a wake up call to food, where it comes from, how it gets to our plates, our mouths and what all goes into producing, processing, and getting it into the stores, into the markets and into our homes. Instead of the typical book group style meeting at the restaraunt, we decided to go on a field trip to a local farm. The owner of the farm gave a tour of his farm and what all he has growing right now; broccoli, spinach, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, different types of lettuce and a few other veggies I can't recall. After touring the grounds and watching the men work the compost pile, smoke was rising from the compost and I was amazed that it steamed due to the breakdown of chemicals and their reactions, we followed him back over to the pig roasting in the ground out back. There were about 40 people visiting the farm today and all were environmentally aware and a lot of them had gardens and were familiar with growing garlic, veggies among other things. It felt like a little commune while we all filled our plates with freshly roasted pork, homemade coleslaw from the veggies in the garden, baked beans, grilled portabella mushrooms, grilled tofu and sweet potatoe pie for dessert. There was fresh local brew to be had and fresh parmeson cheese, it was all delicious.
It was slightly cold but the bonfire was warm and as long as you were in the sunshine, it wasn't too bad until the shade took over.
All in all, it makes me realize how much work goes into growing food and caring for it. This farmer has a landscape company that he put a lot of time into and farming outside of that. He went into the difficulties of getting the certification he needs to sell produce straight from his farm and how the laws are not in favor of small farmers. He sells to a few local farmer's markets and has clients that he helps start a garden in their yard which bring him pleasure.
The Kingsolver book was my favorite as it told the tale of her family's decision to move from Arizona to Virginia on a farm and live off of only local food they could grow or buy from neighboring farms for one entire year. It was funny in parts and insightful in how the food industry doesn't tell us everything about what we put into our bodies every day. I highly recommend reading her book if even to see how we can make a difference by taking baby steps in our everyday life. If everyone of us just put 10% of our spending into supporting local food growers, it would tilt the odds in our favor and keep the small farms around. 10% isn't much and it is something we can make a choice to do by finding a local farmer's market or food co-op nearby and choosing to buy our vegetables there instead of at Kroger or Publix.