When I left off last time, I put the question out there; “what if you couldn’t get clean, high quality, fresh produce from your local supermarket?” In New York, they discovered that with all things optimum, every square foot of agricultural land in production and distribution at peak levels within the city, they could only supply 34% of its city’s food needs for its citizens. I bet it didn’t set well when that report hit the news. Read the above link for some eye-popping information about who controls you via the food you eat. I’ll wait.
What can we do? How many countries did the ingredients of your dinner come from last night – if you even prepared and ate dinner at home? How far did your dinner travel from to get to your table? Granted, most of America’s standard produce only comes from California, which doesn’t seem too far – but, what if they have a drought? What if our oil prices spike again – guess that is not if, but when. And if not just for those reasons, for those concerned with shipping “fresh” food through gasoline powered means leaving a larger than desired carbon footprint – consider local food. It really is a better choice.
What is local or fresh anyway?
It is all over the place – “fresh” this and “fresh” that. (Somehow, no matter what you could buy at a corner gas station – doesn’t really signify “fresh” to me.) But, if you walk out your back door, turn on the water to the soaker hose, pick dinner off the vine; a snip here and a clip there, pull a few weeds, give the compost bin a turn or a poke, turn the hose off, go inside and rinse off your bounty, what did that cost you? Maybe 20 minutes of your time and a few cents for the seeds and water. What did it net you? To steal a famous marketing campaign…. “Priceless”. The nutrition packed in that home grown tomato, those green beans, the eggplant and all those herbs of summer you’re going to eat, (or whatever season it is), can’t be compared with anything on the shelf of even the most outrageously expensive designer grocery store’s food. It just can not compare! Like an automobile pulling off the lot – as soon as you snip/clip, it starts losing its value. So that produce that was stockpiled in a warehouse for months after it was picked pre-ripened, gassed to ripen up nice and pretty in time to put on the store shelf – have how much value to them now? It ought to be cheap – they ought to GIVE the stuff away!
When you pick your own, either from a home garden, a local farm or if you’re lucky enough to find a local farmer at the market you frequent, you can’t beat the quality. Now it is true that soil has something to do with taste. Onions, for instance, grown in one farmer’s soil may be sweeter than in another farmer’s soil 2 towns away. But for nutritional quality, unless they are depleting the soil, you can’t beat something harvested within a few days – versus a few weeks, months or longer. So just because it isn’t cooked – doesn’t mean it is “fresh”.
Speaking of fresh – just in case you hadn’t heard, there is a screening of the new food movie called FRESH! next weekend at the farm, Eden’s Garden. That’s right, where you can still find Market Day each 1st and 3rd Saturday. Next Saturday, September 19th at dusk, the gates open for a free screening (donations will be accepted) of the movie that should add to this summer’s eye opener, FOOD, INC.
FRESH! seeks to inspire and inform. It follows several stories about local food and what people in America are doing to think outside of the box when it comes to our food supply. The movie won't be released in theaters though. The maker of the film, wants us to see this movie together as a community and then to share our thoughts about it afterwards. What a cool concept! And what better place to see it than on a local, small farm in your own community.
The movie screening is part of an all evening event called Barn Aid and Dinner at Eden, a fund raiser coordinated by local photographer and owner of Artsbyj Photography, Jenice Johnson and Marie Tedei, first generation farmer and owner of Eden's. This year's beneficiaries are The Gleaning Network of Texas and Canteyuke, Inc. A local chef, David Gilbert, has agreed to prepare a 3-course vegetarian dinner out of ingredients that are unfolding as I type, from local farms growing without the use of pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, i.e., organic. The new local food magazine, Edible Dallas and Fort Worth, have brought in speaker/author Pamela Walker who just released the book, “Growing Good Things to Eat in Texas” for the dinner event. Pamela will be joined by other local food proponents after the movie to discuss it with the audience. There will be a free concert afterwards by local musical talent, The Lucky Pierres. If you can’t make the charity dinner, don’t fret, Chef Gilbert is bringing in his gourmet hot dog stand and some tasty hormone free sausages from Dominion Farms to serve up for the movie and concert. And we’ll have organic popcorn, too. It will be a great event – designed to educate and raise the level of awareness among our community about what we eat. Tickets are available at www.edensorganicfarm.com for the dinner – reservations required by Sunday, September 13th.
