Wellness Tips
Your guide for achieving optimal health ... |
Eat- Choose local and save the world!
For many of us city dwellers it is very easy to completely forget where our food
comes from. We go to the grocery store to get our food, and we have no
connection to the farms that grew the plants and raised the animals. And
often those farms are thousands of miles away, frequently in other countries.
Think of all the fossil fuel burned in order to deliver the food to your grocery
store! If we care about the planet and global warming, perhaps we can make
more of an effort to search out local food by supporting farmer's markets, for
example. Local produce, even if it is not organic, will taste much better,
have vastly increased nutrient value because it will be picked ripe and sold
fresh within hours, and it will have a much reduced environmental impact not
only because of the shorter distanced traveled but also because this action
supports local family farms rather than the huge multinational agri-business
monopolies that have a terrible environmental record. By supporting
and getting to know our local farmers, we know exactly where our food comes
from, and we are encouraging biodiversity because family farmers are more likely to
grow interesting, different varieties of food. For example, supermarkets that are stocked by agri-business might only have three
or four varieties of apples, but if one shops locally, one may discover several-hundred other kinds. And of course, by shopping locally we are supporting our local economy.
Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon took this idea to the extreme, and for one year, only ate food that was grown or raised within 100 miles of their home in Vancouver, BC, Canada. They are challenging everyone to make a commitment to making sure every ingredient is from a local source for one meal, one day, one week - whatever feels right to you. Read about their food adventure at
The 100 Mile Diet.
What an interesting, inspirational website! Their stories, philosophical
inquiries and ethical dilemmas that they faced while going through the year make
for a fabulous read. This concept of choosing local can also give one an
appreciation for the challenges our ancestors faced living through all the
seasons, by making do with what the land provided for everything from food to
shelter to clothing. One can see how our ancestors
lived in ways that sustained themselves and the planet, and when we look at our
convenience-driven lives that are completely destroying our health and our Earth, I think it is worth adopting
some of the traditional ways of living.
Approximately 58% of the farms make less that $10,000 a year and must
supplement their income off the farm. The mega-commercial farms only make up 7%
of the number of farms but produce 70% of total farm sales, by sacrificing the
wellbeing of the animals, the quality of the food, and the health of the planet,
all in the name of maximizing profits. These large factory farms are not
sustainable and cause huge amounts of groundwater pollution. Large
numbers of
animals are packed into tiny spaces for the duration of their life, are fed
"food" that fattens them up as opposed to their natural diet, so they get
sick. They are fed antibiotics, which is one of the major reasons we have such a
problem with resistance to antibiotic drugs . For more information on the
problems with factory farms, enjoy
The Meatrix
about the meat and poultry industry and
The Meatrix II Revolting
about the dairy industry, two fun cartoons based on the movie The Matrix.
Most of the meat and dairy in our supermarkets come from these factory farms, so
let's speak with our dollars! Choose the sustainable alternative by
supporting local organic or biodynamic farms that produce free-range meats, eggs
and dairy and grow a diversity of produce. If we stop buying the
factory farm products, we can make a huge difference to the health of our bodies
and the health of our world.
Related Tips:Organic vs conventionally raised meat, poultry, eggs and dairy
What is organic food?
Tap, filtered or bottled?
Fallon, Sally and Enig, Mary; Nourishing Traditions, Revised 2nd Edition NewTrends Publishing Inc., Washington, D.C., 2001.
Chek, Paul; You Are What You Eat CD Series Chek Institute, San Diego, CA, 2002.
Online www.westonaprice.org
Chambers, Judy, personal communication, online www.dynamicbynature.com
Online The Sustainable Table
Online The 100 Mile Diet
www.wellnesstips.ca