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industrial agriculture drought vs fresh local food

Industrial agriculture vs fresh local food

What happens when the water runs out?

By Duane Slyder, Head Veggie Fairy & founder of Seasonal Roots:

A few years ago, I visited California’s Tulare County (pictured) with the Northern Neck Growers Association and 21 of Virginia’s finest farmers. We toured fields full of almond trees, sweet potatoes, lettuce, radicchio, and more.

Tulare County is the top agricultural producing county in the U.S., even though its natural state is desert-like. Average rainfall is just 7 inches. When intensive farming started there 50 years ago, farmers relied on snowfall in the surrounding Sierra Nevada mountains to provide water for their summer crops. But then came years of severe drought. There was little snow to be seen when I was there.

Industrial agriculture has its limits

So we were walking with one of Tanimura & Antle’s field managers, Rob, in a 1500-acre field of mixed lettuce. I suddenly realized that I had actually bought some of their heads at a Virginia Kroger during our winter holiday hiatus that year – small world! Rob said with the drought, he and other farmers had been denied access to the mountain water they’d always relied on. They were forced to get all their water from wells, which were drying up. With so little experience on the land, they don’t know what they’re going to do in the long term.

California’s long drought was a warning: In the future, America may not be able to rely on far away places like Tulare County to provide so much of the nation’s produce. Experts say California will be short of water forever.

Farmer Joe Step came with us on that trip. His family has been farming their 120 acres in Virginia – growing broccoli, barley, and cucumbers – for 130 years. He plans to keep on farming. His family knows how to survive droughts and grow produce sustainably with the future in mind. Because he’s local, we can then deliver his produce to you within a couple of days, Dirt to Doorstep(R), while it’s still full of nutrients and flavor.

Support local farmers today… so they’ll be here when we need them tomorrow

This is why we founded Seasonal Roots: To make sure farmers like Joe, who know how to feed us, can keep on farming… so you can keep on getting the freshest food possible. That’s only possible when it’s local. When it comes to maximizing nutrients and flavor, industrial agriculture just can’t deliver. Thank you for making this important local food mission part of your life!

ABOUT SEASONAL ROOTS

Since 2011, Seasonal Roots’ online farmers market has connected Virginia families with local family farmers who use sustainable, humane practices. Our veggie fairies – mostly moms who believe in living better through scrumptious, healthy eating, being kind to animals, protecting the environment, and spreading joy – home-deliver freshly harvested produce, pastured eggs, grassfed dairy and meat, plus artisan fare. We empower our members to eat better and live better with more nutritious, flavorful food that’s good for us and good for the planet. More info at seasonalroots.com.

fresh local food more nutritious

Is Fresh Local Food More Nutritious?

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / July 26-27, 2017

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

FRESH LOCAL FOOD IS THE YUMMIEST WAY TO TAKE YOUR VITAMINS!

The most delicious way to take your vitamins is to eat fresh local food. Fruits and veggies are packed with nutrients and flavor and they taste so much better than pills! Take a fresh-picked peach, for instance…

Continue reading about why is fresh, local food more nutritious, below, or view this issue as a PDF with clickable links.

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fresh local food - sustainable agriculture - lettuce

This is why fresh local food is better for you

The most delicious way to take your vitamins

By the Veggie Fairy Team:

What’s the most delicious way to take your vitamins? Eating fresh local food direct from local farmers! It’s not just more delicious — it’s also better for you than trying to get your vitamins from supplements or even grocery store produce. Here’s why.

Fresh local produce is whole food

According to the Mayo Clinic, whole foods like the farm-fresh produce you get from Seasonal Roots give you three things that dietary supplements can’t:

1. More nutrition. Whole foods are complex. That means they have a variety of the micronutrients your body needs — not just one. Take leafy greens, for example, like the lettuce pictured here, grown by Gerardo Flores and his son Omar on Virginia’s Northern Neck. It’s got vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin K, vitamin B-6, plus thiamine, riboflavins, beta carotene, folates, zeaxanthin, iron, calcium, magnesium, and potassium. Whew! Scientists think all these compounds probably work together to help your body process those nutrients and get the most out of them. A lot of the vitamin content in a pill is wasted without the supportive team of natural compounds your body needs to absorb it.

2. Essential fiber. Whole foods, which include whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes, give you dietary fiber. Fiber does more than keep you regular. Most high-fiber foods are also packed with other essential nutrients. Studies show that when your healthy eating includes fiber, it helps prevent diseases like type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

3. Nature’s body armor. Fruits and vegetables contain naturally occurring substances called phytochemicals. These little guys may help protect you against cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Many of them also protect you with antioxidants, which slow down oxidation — a natural process that leads to cell and tissue damage. That kind of damage is associated with aging and cancer.

But oxidation isn’t just your enemy. Vitamins have enemies, too. Which brings us to grocery stores.

Local + fresh = more vitamins

A fresh-picked peach is a sweet, delicious way to get 11% of the recommended daily allowance of vitamins C and A, and 5% of the RDA for vitamin E… that is, IF you eat it while it’s still fresh.

Vitamins are more vulnerable to oxidation than almost any other nutrient. Air, light, and heat are part of the oxidation process. As soon as a fruit or vegetable is picked, those three things start doing their best to kill the vitamins in the produce. It’s a race against time.

So the fresher your produce is, the more vitamins it still has. That’s why the produce you get direct from local farmers is better for you than produce from the grocery store. Store-bought produce travels at least a week to get there, on average… and often longer. By then those fragile vitamins are fading away, along with the flavor.

The local produce at Seasonal Roots’ online farmers market comes to you straight from the fields of our family farmers. No middlemen, no storage, no long distance travel. So when you take your first bite, it’s still fresh and vitamin-rich – not to mention full of delicious flavor, too.

WHEN it’s picked makes a difference

Our farmers wait until their produce is fully ripe before they pick it. This allows the sun and rain to maximize the flavor and vitamins inside every fruit and vegetable.

That stuff in the grocery store from California, Mexico, or beyond — conventional and organic alike — it was all picked early ahead of its long journey. By the time it gets to you, it may look ripe. But it’s an empty shell compared to the amount of flavor and vitamins in field-ripened produce.

Fresh local food is Grandma’s healthy eating

Modern varieties of produce have been developed to meet the storage and rough handling needs of industrial agriculture — at a price. Modern produce looks good but it’s short on nutrients.

Since our farmers’ produce doesn’t have to endure long, rough trips, they can grow old-fashioned heirloom varieties that have still got all the flavor and nutrition of yesteryear. The old-school broccoli your grandmother ate was much better for her than the broccoli you’ll find in grocery stores today. With fresh local food, you can go back in time and eat that healthful broccoli too.

Sustainability gives you a vitamin boost, too!

All our local family farmers are committed to using sustainable farming practices. Not only does that lower our carbon footprint. It also adds to the benefits of healthy eating that you get from fresh local food. That’s because sustainability includes:

  • Low- or no-spray. Our farmers work with nature instead of against it to manage pests.
  • Healthy soil. Our farmers use crop rotation, cover crops, reduced tillage, careful water management, and more to enrich the soil naturally instead of relying on chemicals. You can see some of those methods demonstrated in Gerardo’s lettuce crop, pictured above.

    Bottom line: Healthy eating starts with fresh local food!

    ABOUT SEASONAL ROOTS

    Since 2011, Seasonal Roots’ online farmers market has connected Virginia families with local family farmers who use sustainable, humane practices. Our veggie fairies – mostly moms who believe in living better through scrumptious, healthy eating, being kind to animals, protecting the environment, and spreading joy – home-deliver freshly harvested produce, pastured eggs, grassfed dairy and meat, plus artisan fare. We empower our members to eat better and live better with more nutritious, flavorful food that’s good for us and good for the planet. More info at seasonalroots.com.

  • Keep fresh local food fresh

    EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / July 19-20, 2017

    Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

    4 COOL REASONS TO LEAVE OUT A COOLER AND ICE PACKS TOO!

    Here are 4 good reasons to leave out a cooler on delivery day each week:
    1. Coolers protect your local food from HEAT, especially when you throw in some ICE PACKS, too. Keep your fresh local food fresh! Once food is harvested or made, it starts losing nutrients and flavor through a process called oxidation. Heat speeds that up…

    Continue reading about why you should leave out a cooler, below, or view this issue as a PDF with clickable links.

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    best Virginia farmers markets

    Best Virginia Farmers Markets

    EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / July 12-13, 2017

    Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

    FIND OUT WHERE TO GO FOR TRULY LOCAL FOOD!

    Here at Seasonal Roots online farmers market, we love in-person farmers markets. They’re our inspiration! Summer is the perfect time to go, too, so our Veggie Fairy Blog has been exploring in-person farmers markets in Richmond, Fredericksburg, Northern Virginia, and the Hampton Roads/Virginia Beach area – communities that are lucky enough to have a local farmers market or two…

    Continue reading about the best Virginia farmers markets, below, or view this issue as a PDF with clickable links.

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    Help local farmers & food artisans

    EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / July 5-6, 2017

    Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

    5 EASY WAYS TO HELP LOCAL FARMERS & FOOD ARTISANS
    BLOOM WHERE YOU’RE PLANTED: YOU, TOO, CAN BE A POSITIVE INFLUENCER!

    If you love fresh, local food, you already know the positive influence your veggie love is having on your life: More delicious, nutritious food, home delivered = health benefits + time saved.
    But do you realize that when you support the good work of our local farmers and food artisans, like the ones above, you’re also a positive influence on your community… and beyond?

    Continue reading about helping local farmers, below, or view this issue as a PDF with clickable links.

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    Eat ugly food

    EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / June 28-29, 2017

    Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

    WHAT DOES TRULY FRESH PRODUCE LOOK LIKE?
    The external appearance of modern produce tells you very little about what’s inside. Big Ag has focused on developing varieties of produce that have a long shelf life and are tough enough to withstand rough handling – nutrition and flavor are not Big Ag’s priority…

    Continue reading about ugly food, below, or view this issue as a PDF with clickable links.

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    Why local pastured eggs are so worth it!

    EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / June 21-22, 2017

    Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

    Outside Richmond in the rolling hills of Amelia Court House, Va., lies a multi-generational family farmstead called Avery’s Branch Farm. The Alexander family live and work there alongside their chickens, turkeys, ducks, pigs, and cows, using sustainable farming methods to produce nutritious, delicious food for us all…

    Continue reading about local pastured eggs, below, or view this issue as a PDF with clickable links.

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    Want to help feed hungry local families?

    EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / June 14-15, 2017

    Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

    As you read this, nearly a million of your fellow Virginians don’t know where their next meal is coming from. That’s more than 10% of our population. (More on this at vafoodbanks.org.) On top of that, many hungry people live in “food deserts”, neighborhoods with little or no access to healthy fresh food. So where will their next truly nutritious meal come from…?

    Continue reading about how you can help feed hungry local families, below, or view this issue as a PDF with clickable links.

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    hydroponic early local tomatoes

    This is where your early local tomatoes come from

    EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / June 7-8, 2017

    Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

    Jack McKenney and his son Justin always wanted to go into business together. Jack was a retired banker and Justin worked for a well-servicing company in Pennsylvania. They also had a pasture in the Virginia countryside that had been in the family for 100 years. So in 2015 the father-son team attended a hands-on hydroponic farming workshop…

    Continue reading about where your early local tomatoes come from, below, or view this issue as a PDF with clickable links.

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