Guest opinion: Eat local, help business

By Jenny Quiner

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As a farmer, I’m constantly talking with my customers about the importance of eating locally, so here are my top five reasons why it is important to eat food grown and raised locally.

Reason: Locally grown food tastes better.
There is nothing better than a vine-ripened tomato grown close to you. Have you ever stopped to wonder why they taste better than store-bought tomatoes? The leading states for tomato production in the United States are California and Florida. This makes sense since their climate is better suited for tomatoes and they can grow them for longer seasons than we can here in Iowa. Grocery stores stock tomatoes year-round, so the majority of tomatoes they sell are not grown locally. Most tomatoes sold at grocery stores are harvested as green tomatoes and ripen in transport, and can even be exposed to gases that speed up the ripening process. They can’t be picked vine ripe, because the time in transport is too long and they would be bad before they make it to our stores. Another thing to consider is many large tomato operations are growing plants hydroponically (not in soil) so their flavor profile is not as strong.

Reason: Local food supports the local economy.
Let’s use garlic as an example: The majority of the garlic sold in our grocery stores come from China. Would you rather use your money to promote a large-scale farming operation thousands of miles away or see it go to the hands of a local farmer? If you buy from local farmers, it allows them to be more successful but it also has a snowball effect for the local economy. The more successful the local farmer is, the more money they will have to spend in their local economy, thus strengthening it.

Reason: Local food can have strong environmental impact.
Food transport can place a toll on the environment. Large refrigerated trucks transporting food across the United States demand quite a bit of fossil fuels. The trucks depend on gas or diesel and emit exhaust that can increase air pollution.

Rather than purchasing packaged baby carrots, consider purchasing carrots from a farmer at a farm stand. Using my farm, for example, our carrots are harvested by hand (using a digging fork), they are bunched, washed and then stored in a 10-by-10 walk-in cooler. Those carrots move 30 feet from my walk-in cooler to the shelf for sale at the farm stand. The environmental impact of those carrots is much less than mega-farms that use large tractor machinery to harvest, wash, store and transport.

Reason: Buying local allows you to connect with your farmer and know more.
Think of a farmers market: Most stands are being run by the farmer, or someone closely associated with the farm. More often than not you are directly buying from the hands that planted the seeds. This gives you an opportunity to talk directly with your grower and ask questions about how to prepare the food, what methods were used to grow the food, and more. 

Reason: Buying local can improve  health.
There is still scientific research being done to find out if locally grown food is better for your health, but here is my take on it: When you focus on buying locally, that also means you will eat seasonally, which is connected to improved health. For example, in the winter you are probably enjoying winter squash, onions and potatoes, while in the summer you probably eat quite a bit of sweet corn, watermelon, tomatoes and strawberries.

Locally grown food tends to be more fresh. Many farmers harvest items less than two days before they sell. 

Finally, I find that people who eat locally tend to be more food-conscious and food-aware. They tend to place more value and have diets higher in fruits, vegetables, meats and grains and eat less processed food. There is a correlation between our nation’s obesity rates and the consumption of processed foods.