Eating Local

Eating Local - Building Stronger Communities

Times have changed.  Consumers and businesses are all beginning to understand our connection to the land and how it effects our health and our economy.

Farmers like Marty Travis and his wife, Kris, have advanced the local food movement here in Illinois with their food hub,  "Stewards of the Land".  A food hub is a group of farms that have incorporated as a unit and are selling their produce through a single channel.
Their food hub in partnership with neighboring farms supplies top Chicago finest chefs with fresh organic produce  year round, and today they're sharing this successful model with the rest of the country.

All over the country there are people looking at making their own food supplies more local. There are all these farm-to-school programs, farm restaurants, and even a healthy farm-food movement in hospitals. So there’s been a huge change.

Many believe that public perception of the subject began changing when people started learning the truth about their food supply films like Food, Inc., which showed people how the pork and other foods they were eating were being raised. That really had a major effect. Hearing that so many ingredients were coming in from China—then there were the scares in China about poisons in infant formula—people began to get scared and to look around and say, ‘Good God! Where’s my food coming from?

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The CSA movement has proved a very positive thing too. It means a lot of farmers are being kept in business, and consumers are developing healthier diets.

One of the most encouraging pieces of news is that there are places out in the Midwest where farmers have actually realized that the price they’re getting for corn is not even enough to keep them alive, and they’re beginning to devote small acreage to fruits and vegetables. They’re discovering they can do it and discovering they can make money from it.

More and more people are becoming aware of just how crappy much of what’s in the food system is, how good it is to be able to get food from farmers and how good it tastes. Flavor is a huge motive in changing people; when they finally taste actual food, they really understand, and there’s a difference for them and they don’t want to go back.

School Lunches

There is also a growing trend toward healthier food in schools in many of the largest school districts, like Chicago who now sources several tons of antibiotic-free chicken on the bone for their school lunch programs.

In the past they purchased chicken tenders and chicken nuggets, but now they're getting wholesome fresh food cooked at the school which you can smell as you walk in.  If kids learn to eat well, their parents are affected, and so is the community.  School lunches offer up great places for change.

Present and Future

Life does indeed begin and end in her garden. This quote from Frances Hodgson Burnett, an English author and gardener, says, ‘To have a garden is to have a future. And to have a future is to be alive.’ Having a garden is a reason to look forward into the spring and can serve as the center of home and community life.

Support your community and go local!

Allimax^® Nutraceuticals U.S.
Chicago, IL 60607
312-421-6132 Office
www.allimax.us

Resources:
Source: Organic Connections Magazine
http://organicconnectmag.com/joan-dye-gussow-matriarch-sustainability/#.U5W0Bna4OTI
http://organicconnectmag.com/stewards-land-new-model-local-agriculture/
www.joansgarden.org.
www.angelicorganics.com
www.shift2green.us
Photos by Jankun Studios, Forest, Illinois