Anyone buying "local" for food?

[momx2]

I just started doing this and also trying to buy more organic and natural foods. I can't say it's helping my budget any, but I've had some of the best produce and meat I've ever had.

BTW, what does "natual" mean? I just bought my DD "natural" cheese puffs. I know it has no preservative or food colorings, but is it really worth the money?

 

[crisi]

There are a number of different marketing tactics for food.

Organic meets USDA organic standards. You may or may not agree completely with what makes organic standards (I'd rather have grass fed non-organic beef than industrial organic beef. There are a lot of great small farms out there that don't qualify as organic, but have better farming practices than large scale organic farms.)

Natural does not meet USDA organic standards. It has no laws around marketing your food as natural, so read the packaging carefully - but is generally used for something that can't be labeled organic but meets some of the requirements - i.e. no hormones or no GMOs.

Industrial organic is large scale organic farming and manufacturing. There are large scale "natural" foods as well. If you are concerned about the life your chicken lead before it ended up on your plate, industrial organic chickens don't have it much better (and in some ways worse), than your normal grocery store chicken.

Local means that it was sourced within a reasonable distance (100 miles or so). Usually local means small farmers, but not always.

Is it worth the money? Organic MAY or MAY NOT be healthier for you - there isn't a lot of data, but some people think its a common sense thing that eating pesticides is bad for you. Or preservatives, or what have you. The jury is out. Organic MAY or MAY NOT taste better for you.

We eat the majority of our food in some form of smaller scale, local, natural, and/or organic. But, sometimes, a person just wants a McDonald's hamburger, even if it barely counts as food.

 

[momx2]

That's the way I look at too! Try to eat a "local" as possible, i.e. around 50 miles of my home. I am also buying some organic, but not totally. I would like to rid my home of as many pesticides and preservatives as possible (my poor DDs who love tuna helper ) I'm just not going over board and only allowing this and that. The locals I buy from are my farmers market and I just found a farmer who also raises "salad bar" pork. I just bought last night for the first time and there was hardly any fat and delicious. I like giving to the local farmers. I think we are heading more toward this way of life, whether good or bad

 

[cerberus]

This year we have really made an effort to buy more "local" food. We visit a farm market twice a week and get most of our veggies and bake goods. We now buy our eggs from a local farmer and all I can say is YUMMY, they taste so much better than the grocery store! We also just ordered our 1st hunk of beef, I can not wait I would not say it is cheaper than the store, but it really is not that much more expensive and gosh it tastes so much better
Plus this year we more than doubled our garden, so that does help with the cost!