Logically

“Let food be thy medicine.” -Hippocrates c. 400 B.C
Ancient Greek physician considered the father of Western Medicine.

I just became a proud member of The Slow Food Movement last week for three very simple reasons: organic, locally grown food tastes better, it’s better for the environment and it improves your overall health.

Even though you are buying organic foods at major supermarket chains, it’s been shipped in from places that are thousands of miles away. Living in Texas, most of our organic foods come to us from places like California, Mexico and Washington. This means that the vegetables were picked before they were ripe, and then they were piled into huge refrigerated trucks so they could be driven in.

I don’t know about you, but to me, this just doesn’t make logical sense. Why should we pay more to buy unripe organic foods that have been driven in from thousands of miles away? The costs to truck in your organic goods, both fiscally and environmentally, is counter intuitive to the notion that buying organic means that you are also saving the environment. It’s a slippery illusion but unfortunately it is a real one.

It just seems a whole lot easier, and a whole lot more logical, to buy less expensive organic ingredients the day they are picked from someone right down the road, wouldn’t you agree?

By buying from local organic farms, you are purchasing all your gorgeous vegetables and leafy greens at the height of their ripeness, so you can taste, with great accuracy, the incredible flavors that are the hallmarks of all the fruits and vegetables that we hold dear.

Dalia Sapon-Shevin
Woodcut from the Battle in Seattle
World Trade Organization protests, 1999
Environmental Food Activist, Author and Artist

In fact, a good farmer is akin to a thoughtful wine maker. Their seeds and their vines are the result of generations of meticulous cultivation and over time, each one becomes a representation of the integrity and ingenuity of the person that cultivated it. As smart as we are, however, the quality of the soil plays a very significant role in the resulting harvest. Each plot of soil has a particular terrior or what I like to call earth flavor, which translates to the bold, characteristic flavors of our venerable vegetables and the subtle nuances of a particular grape. This earth flavor is dictated by the mineral composition of the soil, so a local organic farm is going to have minerals in the soil that are specific to the region in which you live.

Research has shown that eating food grown in your region helps provide your body with region-specific probiotics, strengthening your immune system and reducing your allergic reactions to local flora.

Anyone can see that it just makes sense to buy from local organic farms. In so doing, you are no longer robbing yourself economically, environmentally or nutritionally. Instead of acting the part of an environmentally conscious person, embody the words made famous by Ghandi, “be the change you want to see in the world.”

Together, we can change the laws of supply and demand through the way we spend our money and where we choose to spend it. I always like to imagine that the choices I make in life are synonymous to me tossing a pebble into a very still pool. As I watch the tiny concentric waves ripple out from that point of contact, I get to see first hand how my decision is effecting the whole body of water. When the waves lap up on the sandy banks beneath my feet, I smile knowing that that those delicate waves will pass through the world beneath that endless expanse of water, eventually landing on a very distant shore. If we all toss in a stone at the same time, imagine the enormity of the waves we can produce. Imagine the global changes that can be made.

Lynd Ward, 1905-1985
Woodcut From “Mad Man’s Drum,” 1930
American Graphic Artist and Storyteller