Thoughts from Rose at Rosemarys Farm to Fork Meal Prep
5 Reasons Eating Food from Local Farms is Better
If you're curious how you can improve your diet, you can start with getting food from grocery stores, restaurants, and meal prep services that source meat and produce from local farms.
Movements like plant-based eating, low-carb, raw eating, Whole 30, prebiotic diets, and Mediterranean diets rise and fall in popularity.
But one important health consideration that isn’t talked about nearly as much as it should be is the significant positive impact it can make to get your groceries and meal prep from local farms.
Because while most Americans get their groceries from local grocery stores or supermarkets, the places where the food actually comes from can often be from factory farms located all over the world.
This has a bigger impact to your health than most people realize.
So there is a lot of value in putting in the extra bit of research that it takes to find places to buy locally grown food.
Here are five reasons why eating food sourced from local farms is better:
1) Eating Food From Local Farms is More Nutritious
First, let’s start with the number one way eating food and meal prep from local farms benefits you directly: local food is more nutritious.
Believe it or not, the amount of time it takes for your food to get from the farm to your market and then your table does actually have an impact on its nutrient content.
See, when fruits and vegetables are first harvested, they immediately start undergoing a decomposition process in which their nutrients are broken down.
As Amihud Kramer from the University of Maryland explains, ”With few exceptions, nutrient levels and/or their bioavailability are reduced in foods following harvest, slaughter, or collection.”
The longer it takes for them to be consumed, the fewer nutrients they will ultimately have when you get around to eating them.
So when your apple travels 1,500 miles to get from the farm to your plate, it spends quite a bit of time sitting in refrigerated trucks, planes, and warehouses, the vital nutrients inside of it breaking down all the while.
That means that the less travel time and distance between the farm and the table, the more nutrition you’ll get from your food.
2) Farm Fresh Food Tastes Better
Okay, so your local food will be better for your body, but what about your soul?
Because we don’t just eat to keep our bodies running, but also for pleasure. Well,
it turns out that local food tastes better, too.
Just like nutrients start to degrade immediately from when food is harvested and continue
to do so with every hour and day that passes, the same thing happens with flavors.
But with local foods fresh from farms, crops are picked at the peak of their ripeness and delivered to you shortly after so that you can enjoy your fruits and vegetables when they are at their best, still fresh and full of flavor.
3) Locally Sourced Food is Better for Your Community
Now, let’s move on past the advantages that you’ll get as an individual from buying your food from local farms and take a bit of a wider approach.
Because you’re not the only one who will benefit from a commitment to eating local.
The reality is that your typical giant chain supermarket or global factory farm will do just fine without your business.
But each and every time that you buy from a local farmer, you are making a positive impact on their livelihood and their families.
In that sense, eating food from local farms supports your local communities by supporting the farmers, their families, and even having a positive impact on local taxes.
This is because small, local farms typically pay more in taxes than they require in services, keeping tax costs down for the entire community.
4) Locally Sourced Food is Better for the Environment
And what about looking even more globally than just your community?
Because the truth is that eating food and meal prep from local farms is actually making a positive impact on the world as a whole.
Think about it.
All of that shipment that is required to get food from mega farm factories to grocery stores in other states and countries requires quite a bit of energy and fuel.
As you can imagine, these things have a significant carbon footprint.
By buying your food from local farms, you’re voting with your dollar for a business that uses less shipping and, as a result, creates fewer greenhouse gases that damage our environment.
Beyond that, local farmers tend to have much more environmentally friendly practices than mega factory farms.
Rather than stripping the land of its nutrients, small farms actually conserve fertile soil and even put nutrients back into the earth.
5) Farm Fresh Food Keeps YOU Connected
When you think about it, shopping at national or international supermarket chains that buy their produce from factory farms thousands of miles away is a relatively recent practice.
For millennia, humans had a much stronger connection with their food and, as a result, their environments and one another.
When you shop locally, you get to know the local farmers of your community. You learn about the land you live on, its seasons, and its food.
It provides an opportunity to understand more about nature and agriculture, allowing you to have a real relationship with your food and the people who grow it so that you feel connected to the world you live in instead of alienated from it.
These reasons and more are why our meal prep delivery service sources our produce and meat from small-batch, sustainable, organic local farms.
When you order our delicious meal prep from Rosemarys Farm-to-Fork, you’re supporting the following local farms:
- Ben Lockewood Acres in Vacaville, California, a full-service, certified organic farm modeled upon the Community Supported Agriculture model.
- Mary’s Chickens, a humane poultry farm in Sanger, California that uses no animal by-products, no genetically modified organisms, no antibiotics, no pesticide-treated grains, and no grains grown with chemical fertilizers.
- The Cloverleaf Farm located outside of Davis, California, an 8-acre organic orchard and farm that follows regenerative principles including no-till, rotational grazing, native pollinator and predator habitat restoration, and cover-cropping.
- Be Love Farm in Vacaville, California, a farm that uses regenerative annual farming practices with the goal of developing carbon-sequestering humus and nutrient-dense food.
- Del Rio Botanical in West Sacramento, California, a farm with 68 acres of organically certified vegetables, fruits, herbs, and heirloom seeds.
- Belly Farm in the Capay Valley of northern California, a certified organic farm committed to fostering sustainability on all levels.
Let's eat local, shop local, and be healthier and happier together!
Sincerely,
Rose
Rosemarys Farm to Fork Meal Prep is a premium food delivery service. We currently deliver to select cities in the Greater Sacramento Region and San Francisco Bay Area Communities. It's the easiest way to eat healthy, paleo, gluten-free, fully prepared, ready-to-eat meals that are perfect for anyone looking to improve their diet and nutrition while saving time. Start your week off right with nutrient-dense and mouth-watering Rosemarys Farm To Fork Paleo Organic Meal Prep Delivery today!
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