Eating locally grown ONLY can often lead to undesired consequences.  Before Americans were able to truck what grows well in California, up to say, the folks in Maine, we were an unfortunate combination of vitamin & mineral deficiencies.  To me, saying you only want to eat locally, is like saying you want to live like the Pioneers did.  If you remember correctly, Pioneers often died at young ages of what we consider now totally preventable & avoidable diseases & food poisonings.

If you live in a climate with only 2 or 3 seasons, you might be able to do just that, eat locally and maintain a healthy balance to your diet.  But LOTS of Americans live in places where there are short growing seasons, long HOT dry seasons or too wet of a season to grow much of anything!  If you lived in these places, you would understand that you can NOT live on what is available locally if you hope to live a  long productive life!  The only point I am willing to concede here is that perhaps we should not be living in those places, where food varieties are limited by climate.    However, humanity does not understand the word NO, and we proceed forward toughing out even the most extreme conditions.

We adapt, and in America, part of adapting meant that a generation or two suffered or endured long enough to build an infrastructure on this land.    Infrastructure that would allow the transport of resources from one side of this continent to the other and one of our priorities was moving food by rail or road.  We became strong & fit, as a people and as a nation by eating food from all over our new land.  Our railways & roads, grew to reinforce farming & industry and brought life to the heart of our nation.   This is undoubtedly why we call our farming belt, The Heartland.

Farming put our country on the fast track to long term success, our ability to grow such a wide variety of foods, plant & animal, on one continent, all owned by one nation.   It is something that makes our continent & climate combination so desirable, and makes us lucky to be here.   You don’t think that a Russian Parsnip & Carrot farmer lingers a little too long sometimes on the idea that he too could have “happy cows” living in the  California sunshine? Or maybe he really longs to grow Artichokes, his favorite delicacy, because in Russia, they are a delicacy.    I certainly do and try to appreciate that when I go out to my own gardens to grow what I can.   Because like my fictitious Russian root vegetable farmer friend,  I adore Artichokes and am in no position to grow them in my climate either!

I don’t have romantic notions about gardening.  It’s hard, almost impossible to grow your own food even given the land & skills to do so, it’s STILL a ton of hard work.  I would rather buy most of my food at my local stores or markets, but like so many people, it’s just not available in the way I would like;  chemical free.  So I feel compelled to grow some things, like sweet peppers!  My goodness, peppers are $4 EACH sometimes here at the store!  Good grief!   But I digress, the grocery stores do offer variety I could NEVER get at home or in my neighborhood, like oranges, lemons, poms, starfruit, artichokes and so on!  And if I never bought those things, my diet would be lacking.  Farming, trucking, railway, packaging jobs would be lost if I only ate locally!  We NEED to eat beyond our region, because your body AND your country is depending on you.  Sure you can take a vitamin or mineral supplement, but why?  Why not just eat the orange once or twice a week from out of town, support a farmer, transport company & your health.   And what about those supplements?  How do you verify if THOSE are local?  You can’t.  Therefore in my common sense world, there is no way to eat ONLY locally and maintain or achieve optimum health.

We can work on our differences, our infrastructure, our morality as a country, but without a good diet, without good food and nutrition, we won’t be operating at peak efficiency.  And THAT to me is the number one reason to eat a well balanced varied diet to the best of your ability.   From there, with that good foundation, we can once again grow into health & fitness as the norm.

So what are you to do if you are now not sure about eating locally?  Eat RESPONSIBLY is my suggestion.  Get to know the companies who produce the food you want to buy and learn how they treat the planet and their employees.  Buy ONLY from responsible companies who are trying to give back, help the people or the land or who share your own moral and religious views.  ‘Know your farmers’ & food providers doesn’t just mean go to the local Farmer’s Market and talk to the vendors, it means use the INTERNET to learn about these companies and support the good ones!  If a company isn’t providing more than enough information online about their practices, send them an email and ask!  Most all the good responsible corporations are on board with complete transparency these days.