I’ve been thinking about this question a lot lately. How do you choose the best food to buy when weighing local vs. nutrition vs. cost?
There are a lot of people these days who are trying to eat a local diet. Local means eating food that was produced within 100 miles of your home.
There are online challenges that people track on their blogs. There’s the One Local Summer Challenge going on right now. And there’s people eating a hyperlocal diet, as in the 100 Foot Diet (which is where you try to only eat foods that you have grown yourself).
I think the local food (locavore) movement is wonderful. Food in America is transported, on average, 1500 miles from farm to fork. That’s just crazy! Just think of all the oil it takes for one meal!
I also think it’s important to try to eat food in season as much as possible. It’s always better to enjoy cherries in the summertime and pumpkins in the fall. Not only are they tastier when they are in season, but to me there is something special — even sacred — about it: a bowl full of cherries on the kitchen counter on a hot summer day and a pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. Who would want to eat a pumpkin pie in the middle of July?
That said, I think you can get a little extreme with all of these blog challenges and lose focus on what is really important. I’m focused on rebuilding our health right now, and making sure Kate is as healthy as she can be. This is why I chose not to do One Local Summer.
One Local Summer would be easy for me to do. The rules are just to eat one meal per week with all local ingredients (excluding spices). One dinner a week? That would be no problem for me.
We get all our beef, pork, poultry, and eggs from local farmers within 100 miles from our house. Our honey and most of our vegetables and fruits are also local.
But our olive oil comes from Adam’s Ranch — 150 miles away. And most of our dairy (milk, butter, cream and cheese) comes from Organic Pastures — 200 miles away.
And there are many supplements we are taking that are shipped from all over. Who knows where they are produced. We take cod liver oil and probiotics and dessicated adrenal gland, among other things. I also buy various ingredients via mail order for Kate’s homemade baby formula (lactose powder, powdered gelatin, nutritional yeast, coconut oil, etc.)
I’ve been drinking Dandy Blend lately. So instead of coffee from Mexico or Costa Rica, the Dandy Blend comes from Ohio. I suppose I could make my own Dandy Blend, once my dandelion seedlings get big enough — but that won’t be for months.
I also regularly order liverwurst and hot dogs from US Wellness Meats (the local grass fed beef farmers do not carry these items).
I’m choosing not to do One Local Summer because that’s not really my focus. My focus is nutrition and health for my family. And I don’t want to lose focus.
I agree that is important to try to eat locally as much as you can. But at the same time, I don’t believe in making sacrifices at the expense of nutrition. Of course if money is tight, you have to do the best you can. But, for example, I would never buy local milk that was pasteurized when I can get raw milk from grass-fed animals that is farther away. And I only buy wine made from organic grapes now — and it’s not local.
I would also never buy pasteurized milk because it’s cheaper. Raw dairy products are so vital for health. I would buy raw milk even if I had to pay $20/gallon and have it shipped from the other side of the country.
That said, it is important to save money where I can so I can spend more money on other things. So, while I do buy raw butter from Organic Pastures, I also buy Kerrygold butter (sold at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods). Yeah, it comes from Ireland and that’s pretty far away. And it is pasteurized. But it’s cultured and it comes from grass-fed cows. And it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than the Organic Pastures raw butter. My compromise: I use the Kerry Gold for baking. For light sauteeing and spreading on toast, I eat the raw butter.
I’m also looking into joining Azure Standard, an organic food co-op. Not local, but the prices are very, very good. For me, it’s worth it to save money where I can so I can spend more money on things like raw milk and cream and butter.
It’s really hard when you’re weighing all of these things. Local vs. nutritious vs. inexpensive. I guess it just depends on what your priorities are. My number one priority is health for my family. Especially because Kate is a growing girl — she needs the best quality most nutrient dense foods I can give her.
I want to give her the best start I possibly can — especially because when she gets older, I’ll have a lot less influence on what she eats. Which means the time to build up those nutritional stores is now.
When you are feeding a child, the responsibility is awesome. Especially today. Fifty years ago, our food supply was a lot less contaminated (with genetically engineered foods, trans fats, pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, etc.) Up until the 1980s, McDonald’s was still using healthy fats (beef tallow instead of rancid vegetable and soybean oil like they use today). Fifty years ago, childhood autism, diabetes and allergies were rare. Today they are commonplace.
It’s not enough just to avoid those bad foods. Because physical degeneration due to malnutrition happens slowly over time — over generations. These days, I believe you have to do all you can to get healthy foods into your children — and you have to supplement.
Is it a coincidence that by the time I was 26, I had osteo-arthritis? I remember my mom’s reaction when I told her, “You’re too young to have arthritis!” It is no coincidence. Each generation is becoming weaker and more sickly on this fake and processed food.
Margarine instead of real butter, pasteurized milk instead of real raw milk, grain-fed beef and soy-fed chickens, high-fructose corn syrup or white sugar instead of honey or maple syrup, white flour instead of whole grains, genetically modified corn and soybeans in almost all processed foods, etc. etc. Just because you’re eating organic and/or local, doesn’t mean the cows ate grass or the chickens weren’t fed soy or the milk wasn’t boiled (which destroys all the enzymes and probiotics and many of the nutrients).
Seth and I are both recovering from 40 years of eating a SAD (standard American diet). We want to be healthy as long as humanly possible — so we can be around for our grandchildren!
If I have to choose between cost and location, the second priority is a tough call. But I’d have to say it’s cost. And not because I try to save money by buying cheap food. I don’t. But I do save where I can so I have more money to buy better quality.
Again, it comes back to nutrition. Kate’s over a year old now and I’m still feeding her homemade baby formula made with raw milk, raw cream, coconut oil, etc. I will continue to do so for quite some time. I wish I could breastfeed but I can’t (probably due to my own health challenges from eating SAD for so long). So this is the next best thing. And it’s not cheap. Nor is it local.
I also need to rebuild my nutritional stores for the next baby. So expensive superfoods and supplements are a must for me. And a must for Seth, with his health challenges past and present, also needs these as well.
I will always choose local over foods from a distance — but only if the nutritional quality is equal. With two exceptions: I will buy foods that come from far away if (a) we need them for our health (like coconut oil and cod liver oil) or (b) they are cheaper and allow me to buy other quality foods (like Kerry Gold butter for baking). If I save some money by buying KerryGold or buying in bulk from Azure Standard, that means I have more money for supplements.
reported maximum levels of arsenic of between 0.9 and 3.4 mg/litre. 
