Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Why Eat Local?

You might think this is impossible in our neck of the woods. 
No, not so.
Luckily it is getting easier and easier to find and enjoy
fresh, local and organic foods.

Why is it so important to eat organically?


10 Reasons to Eat Organically—and Locally

By Steve Edwards
"Think globally, act locally" isn't just for bumper stickers anymore. This grassroots politics-type slogan has become an important way of thinking about where your next meal should come from. But the implications here are far more than political. Buying local—as well as organic—foods allows you to protect your family by feeding them in the safest way possible. Here are 10 reasons to add "visit the local farmers' market" to the top of your to-do list each week.
Vegetables in Wok
  1. Local foods are safer. Or at least you can find out if they are. Organic food standards are high, but there are still companies out there attempting to cloud the rules. When you buy locally, it's easier to check out what you're buying, and you won't have to hire Magnum, P.I., to do it. The great thing about local media is that they love to cover this stuff. If for any reason a local farm is mixed up in nefarious activities, there's a good chance your paper has a reporter dreaming of a gig at The New York Times who'll be on the job for you. Even if this isn't the case, you can be inquisitive at the farmers' markets—you'll be surprised how quickly you can get up to date on the local scoop. Farmers who adhere to a strict code of ethics love to talk about others who do, and those who don't.
  2. Organic TurnipsOrganic foods are safer. Organic certification standards are the public's assurance that their food and products have been grown and handled according to sustainable procedures, without toxic, synthetic, irradiated, or genetically modified elements, including chemical fertilizers, pesticides, antibiotics, and other additives. At least that's what the law says. But even though many companies still cheat the system, most of them play by the rules. These rules are in place to help both soil longevity and the health and safety of the consumer. Many Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-approved pesticides were registered long before extensive research linked these chemicals to cancer and other diseases. Now, the EPA considers 60 percent of all herbicides, 90 percent of all fungicides, and 30 percent of all insecticides, none of which meet organic criteria, to be potentially cancer causing. You can't always be certain you're getting safe food, but eating organic foods stacks the odds in your favor.
  3. Organic food tastes better. Many people would be amazed to taste the difference between garden-grown fruits and vegetables (and wild meat) and the offerings you find down at your local mega-grocery-mart. The main reason for this disparity has to do with something called trophic levels, which is determined by where plants and animals fall on the food chain. When food—even natural food—is manufactured, as when plants are grown in poor soil with some added nutrients, or animals are raised using drugs and a nonnative diet, their physiological chemistry is altered. This doesn't just change their nutrient content—it changes the way they taste.
  4. Vegetables on a ForkOrganic food is more nutritious—which stands to reason, based on the whole trophic levels thing. When soils are depleted and then fertilized, only certain nutrients are added with fertilizers. This results in the loss of many of the plants' original phytonutrients. While these lost phytonutrients aren't necessarily a major component of any individual plant, they add up in your diet and become a major component of who you are. This lack of phytonutients in the plants in our diets has a lot to do with many modern-day maladies. With regard to meat, it's basically the same story. Animals that are fed a poor diet are, as you might imagine, less healthy to eat, because they're also missing out on essential nutrients thanks to the trophic level paradigm—just like you are.
  5. You won't have to eat genetically modified organisms (GMO). A GMO is a plant, animal, or microorganism whose genetic sequence has been modified to introduce genes from another species. Because the long-term impact of GMOs on our health isn't known yet, they're forbidden by the Soil Association Standards for Organic Food and Farming. Furthermore, in order to qualify as organic, animals can't be fed GMOs, nor can they be fed antibiotics, added hormones, or other drugs. It is not currently required, however, that GMOs be mentioned on food labels, so it's very likely that anything not certified organic contains some GMO ingredients.
  6. WaterYour drinking water will be safer. The EPA estimates that pesticides contaminate groundwater in 38 states, polluting the primary source of drinking water for more than half the country's population. Because organic farmers practice water conservation and don't use toxic chemicals that leach into your groundwater, organic farming leads to less waste intrusion into our aquifers, which helps keep your drinking water healthier.
  7. Your kids will be healthier. The toxicity of pesticide residue is determined not only by the chemicals used, but by our body weight in relation to how much we consume. This means that your children are even more at risk than you are. It's estimated that the average child receives four times more exposure than the average adult to at least eight widely used cancer-causing pesticides in food. To try and minimize this risk, buy organic, but also make sure that your family eats a wide variety of foods.
  8. Local FarmerTo help farmers and farm communities. It's estimated that the U.S. has lost more than 650,000 family farms since 1990. The USDA predicts that half of the U.S. farm production comes from only 1 percent of farms. Organic farming may be one of the few survival tactics left for the family farm and rural communities. The majority of organic farms are still small-scale operations, generally on fewer than 100 acres, and using an average of 70 percent less energy. Small farms use far more sustainable and environmentally friendly practices than large-scale farms do. For example, small farms use manure to fertilize soil, naturally recycling it to keep the land productive.

    Industrial farms produce so much manure that it's a human health risk. The overspill of manure has contaminated water wells with E. coli and other pathogens. This brings up another subject: Industrial farms still—though now illegally—feed animals the ground-up remnants of other animals that aren't naturally part of their diet. This has led to pathogens like E. coli getting into our foods in the first place.

    Furthermore, farm workers are much safer on small farms. A National Cancer Institute study found that farmers exposed to herbicides had six times more risk of contracting cancer than nonfarmers did. Due to their direct exposure, field workers on conventional farms are the most vulnerable to illness as a result of pesticide use. Organic farms eliminate that risk by eliminating harmful pesticides and other chemical inputs from their practices.
  9. For more humane treatment of animals. Factory farms treat animals like commodities. They are usually kept in tightly confined pens or cages and often never move more than a few feet for their entire lives. They are also fed the cheapest foods available, no matter how it affects their—and then our—health. Besides the fact that a host of illnesses have entered our world as a direct result of this practice, it's also just not nice. Animals on organic farms are far likelier to be raised without cruelty. They are also fed a diet much closer to what they would eat naturally, and studies tell us—surprise!—that these animals tend to be significantly healthier than their factory-raised counterparts.
  10. EconomyTo promote a vibrant economy. Organic products only seem more expensive because people base their cost on their sticker price alone. However, retail price represents a mere fraction of their true cost. Market prices for conventionally grown foods don't reflect the costs of federal subsidies to conventional agriculture, the cost of contaminated drinking water, loss of wildlife habitat and soil erosion, or the cost of the disposal and cleanup of hazardous wastes generated by the manufacturing of pesticides. Compared to local farms, there's also transportation—and the pollutants that result from it—to consider. All of this means that essentially, you can pay now or pay later—just remember that you're going to be charged interest, mainly in the form of a socially and ecologically diminished world to live in.
 Here, Here!
Some of the questions I get asked frequently as I teach and encourage people to choose organic, whole foods is how can people afford it, 
how do we know that it is any better for us, 
does it really make a difference?

My answers include:
1. It's not as expensive as you think. When you buy organic, you are buying more nutrient dense food. So, you actually eat a lot less then you normally do, because your body fills nourished and it isn't sending you constant hunger signals in a desperate attempt to get in missing nutrients that aren't found in non-organic foods and processed packaged foods.
2. Go to any grocery store and look at the difference in color of a non-organic tomato and an organic tomato. Better yet, go to a local farmers market or to someones backyard garden and see the difference from a grocery bought tomato (or any other fruit or vegetable) and these tomoatoes. 
Now taste the difference. Big difference, right?
 3.You feel the difference! I know that this alone won't convince many of the skeptics out there...
So, I say read about it and educate yourself on what the difference is. You can come to our 
Wellness Workshop on February 24 at 7pm at ELEVATE in Orem, and hear what Dale Allred 
has to say about all of this. He goes beyond organic, and it shows!

Some of my favorite local resources for fresh food include:
 To buy:

To eat:
Cafe Fresh
Visit these locations and you literally vote with your fork and make it more likely that we will be able to have the best food we can possibly get. 
Try each day to make the best choices for you, your family and our community.

We have had fun this past week in the most local place I can get...my house! 



Saturday we had a big group of detox enthusiasts that are ready to take back their health and bring back balance to their bodies.

We had fun and stayed way longer than the allotted time just sharing ideas and tips and getting to know each other better. 
Unfortuately I forgot to take a picture of everyone until about half of them left. 
So, I'm sorry if you aren't in the picture.

Thanks for coming!

Our next class 
is on what to do after the detox.
We will be meeting at my house again on Saturday Feb. 26 at 10 am. Sign up by commenting below with your contact information or contacting me at cody@elevateutah.com
We will cover healthy eating of whole foods and daily practices that keep you from absorbing and forming 
those nasty toxins that are out there.
 $15
(Also, we will be having another 21 Day Detox class on March 5)

Can I also suggest enjoying some of this local ladies (which we determined last night is a perfectly suitable name for any man to call a woman) gifts:
 We had Melissa Chappell of 
rawmelissa.com
come and chef for our Valentines Dinner last night. She is lovely and the food was amazing!

and her friend and assistant Hans was pretty awesome himself...
and very handy with a knife and a plunger.

Hope you had a very Happy Valentines Day!

Love,

Cody

2 comments:

  1. Thanks so much Cody! Too funny on the picture of Hans!

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  2. Cody I LOVE your new blog!! It is so awesome. I can't believe you had Raw Melissa come be your chef?? How cool is that? Duh...you are the coolest. Thanks again for your sweet comment! I love you to pieces!! xoxoxo

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