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industrial agriculture drought vs fresh local food

Industrial agriculture vs fresh local food

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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 - sustainable agriculture - lettuce

This is why fresh local food is better for you

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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.

    • 10 Ways This Simple New Years Resolution Will Help You Live Better

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    By the Seasonal Roots Veggie Fairies:

    If you make a New Years resolution to eat local, sustainably produced food in 2017, you won’t just live better – you’ll actually help change the world. So without further ado, here are the top 10 ways this one simple New Years resolution will change you and your world. (Just wait till you get to #1!)

    Resolve to eat local, sustainably produced food, and you will…

    #10:
    …waste less of everything, including time.
    The short distance between a local farm and you means less storage, no middleman, and that means less wasted food and packaging. And with home delivery from an organization like Seasonal Roots, you’ll save time, too.

    #9:
    …relax and enjoy the view.
    Use some of that time you save to relax and enjoy the open space you’ll be helping preserve. That’s because buying local food saves nearby farms from getting turned into yet another suburban development. Since our farmers use sustainable methods (unlike factory farms that plant miles and miles of monocrops), our farmers create ecosystems that are good for the soil, water, and air, a rich patchwork of fields, meadows, woods, and ponds – the perfect habitat for wildlife and a peaceful space for recreation.

    #8:
    …reduce unemployment and taxes in your community.
    When you buy local, your food dollars stay in your community instead of going to some faraway corporate headquarters. Buy local food and your dollars create jobs at local farms, food processing facilities, and distribution systems. Plus, studies show that, compared to development, farms contribute more in taxes than they require in services. Chickens don’t go to school and rutabegas don’t call 911. That helps keep taxes from going up.

    #7:
    …achieve peace of mind.
    Local food is safer and more secure. You’ll get to know the farmers who are growing and handling the things you eat. They’re not anonymous, and neither are you, and our farmers take that relationship seriously as they grow and handle your food. Plus, if there’s ever a breakdown in the global food system – which relies on fossil fuels to produce, package, store, and distribute food – your local farmers will still be here, still supplying you with safe, fresh food.

    #6:
    …eat more delicious food.
    Most Seasonal Roots food comes from farmers and artisans within 150 miles (one-tenth as far as supermarket produce). Because local food doesn’t travel very far, farmers can grow varieties for their flavor, not for shelf life and ability to withstand getting drop-kicked halfway around the world. And since the stuff our local farmers grow will be eaten in days instead of weeks, it can be picked at the peak of ripeness — mmmmm. As for locally made products like cheese, bread, and coffee, they’re handcrafted for best flavor and not pumped full of preservatives and artificial flavors.

    #5:
    …be super cool.
    Compared to the global industrial food complex, food from local farmers and artisans uses less fuel and produces less CO2 – 17 times less! So local food belches fewer greenhouse gases and fights global warming. That’s cool.

    #4:
    …support family farms.
    Our family farmers treasure the land as a legacy for their children. They farm with future generations in mind, not short-term profit. That’s good for all of us, for all the reasons listed here.

    #3:
    …be kind to animals.
    Unlike factory farms, our family farmers raise their animals humanely. Chickens, cows, goats, and pigs live happy lives in open pastures. It’s good for the animals, who don’t need constant antibiotics and hormones to grow and stay healthy, and good for us people, too. Grass-fed meat, milk, and eggs are much more nutritious than the conventionally produced kind.

    #2:
    …get healthy.
    Fresh, local, sustainably grown food is better for you. Take meat, dairy, and eggs from animals raised sustainably on pasture. Grass-fed beef, for example, is higher in “good” cholesterol (and lower in “bad”) than factory farmed beef. Grass fed dairy is higher in vitamins A and E, lower in fat, and contains more antioxidants. As for produce, as soon as you pick it, it starts to lose nutrients. So Seasonal Roots delivers it to you within 48 hours, dirt to doorstep™. (Supermarket produce is typically a week old and has lost almost half its nutrients before you even get it home!) Sustainably produced food also means less (or no) agricultural chemicals (such as pesticides), antibiotics, or hormones.

    #1: (Drum roll, please…)
    …bring more love and joy into your life!
    Resolve to buy local, sustainably produced food and you will have a powerful tool for strengthening all the loving relationships in your life. Let’s say you get a passle of local peaches, so fresh and ripe you can smell them, and you remember the peach pie your grandmother used to make when you were a kid, and you get totally inspired and dig out that recipe and call in the kids. Together you whip up a couple of pies while you tell them stories about your late great granny. Then Mr. Grumpy Pants from next door marches over to complain about the noise of happy children – but you offer him a piece of pie and a strange look comes over his face, and you realize that strange look is a smile, and you get to know each other while eating delicious pie to the sound of the laughter of children. And isn’t that what life is all about?

    The Veggie Fairies at Seasonal Roots wish you a happy, healthy New Year!

    Share the veggie love with someone you care about! 10% off Seasonal Roots Gift Cards if you order by January 2 — give the gift of living better. Just send us an email with your phone number and best time to call to arrange credit card payment, and we’ll set you up with all the Gift Cards you need.