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Buy locally grown foods, and savor the benefits SHOP SMART

September 30, 2007 12:35 am

LOCALLY GROWN

foods give you

more flavor and vitamins for less money, introduce you to interesting neighbors, and help the environment by cutting down on fuel needed to transport foods around the country. That's a lot of bang for your buck!

And now, eating locally is trendy, lauded in popular books such as Barbara Kingsolver's best-selling "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," other books such as "The 100-Mile Diet" and "Plenty," and in online forums.

The average food item in the U.S. travels 1,500 miles, using a lot of foreign oil and creating greenhouse gases along with way, according to Kingsolver. Only 15 cents of every dollar we spend on food goes to farmers, she writes. The rest goes to distributors, stores, processors and packagers.

Knowing this has made me think more about the virtue of buying foods that are in-season and locally grown, rather than foods whose nutrients may be degraded by freezing, travel or time.

There are even ways to have "in-season" foods year-round--I'll discuss those later in this column.

If you shop at a local farmers' market, you can save money while helping scenic local farms stay in business rather than being sold to developers.

I almost always pay less at my local farmers' market in Wisconsin. I realize sometimes people find better bargains at chain supermarkets. But I like knowing my food was grown nearby. And personally, I enjoy meeting the people who care for my food.

A few years ago, I met a charming schoolgirl who sold fresh eggs at the Fredericksburg farmers' market. I also enjoyed chatting with an older man who sold apples, peaches, and plums. I even worried about him when he didn't show at market for several weeks--it turned out he was recovering from hip surgery.

He always told me which varieties of fruit were peaking that week, and his recommendations were mouthwatering.

Besides being fun, the farmers market can be far less expensive than the grocery store. For example, I can buy glorious, ruby-red tomatoes for $1 a pound at my nearby market. The incredible aroma of sun-ripened tomatoes shames their pale, grocery-store cousins. Even hothouse tomatoes aren't as tasty to me, and they cost more.

I think farmers' market tomatoes have three secret weapons--first, they are picked perfectly ripe, not green and then allowed to ripen in the back of a truck as driving across the Unites States. Ripe tomatoes are delicate and taste better.

Second, local growers can cultivate unusual, great-tasting heirloom varieties. Third, locally grown tomatoes take on a special, inimitable flavor from whatever soil they are grown on.

That's why tomatoes from Virginia's Hanover County are known nationwide for their great flavor.

Fresh foods are most nutritious, another reason to shop locally.

The vitamin C in green beans, bell peppers, broccoli and other vegetables degrades over time. Local fruits and vegetables spend less time being trucked to the store and thus may have more vitamin C compared to those grown far away.

Plus, local foods are more likely to be unprocessed, higher in fiber and vitamins, and naturally lower in sodium and trans fats.

Along with shopping at farmers' markets, another way to get locally grown foods is to subscribe to a CSA, short for Community-Supported Agriculture. You can sign up and pay in advance for locally grown produce that's delivered every week.

When I lived in Virginia, I belonged to the Fredericksburg Area CSA Project. They gave me so much food I ended up sharing it with friends. It was wonderful. (For more information, contact Heidi Lewis at 540/373-5910.)

You can also consider visiting a natural foods store or food co-op to get the rest of your groceries.

Or stop by your local supermarket. Some markets label where food is grown. If not, consider asking the produce manager. Although supermarket chains carry a lot of items from far away, you may be able to change that by requesting more local products.

You can save money if you buy in season, so consider preserving local or homegrown produce by canning, freezing or drying it. I confess that I'm a bit lazy about canning. But freezing or drying foods seems easier.

For instance, I recently bought a bag of beautiful tomatoes at the farmers market and cooked up some fragrant spaghetti sauce, which I froze. And I usually grow basil in my garden, which I make into pesto and freeze in ice cube trays to use all winter in soups and pasta sauces.

This year, I bought a food dehydrator and "sun-dried" my own tomatoes, apple slices and plums.

To me, drying foods is the easiest of all. You basically slice the food and abandon it on the dehydrator trays for several hours. You come back and voilà--it's ready to be stored in jars or freezer bags.

Admittedly, I make exceptions for supermarket "imports" that I don't want to live without, such as chocolate, coffee, tea, canned tuna, beans and bananas. I try to buy fair trade or organic versions when feasible.

Flour, bread and crackers are also exceptions. It seems ironic that although it takes only 30 minutes for me to drive from my house to rippling, golden fields of wheat, I don't know where to buy local flour. I do try to buy bread from local bakeries.

I just do what feels good. It's rewarding to find tasty, inexpensive, healthful foods and to support local farmers.

Jennifer Motl welcomes reader questions via her Web site, brighteating.com, or mailed to Nutrition, The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va. 22401.