Why and How to Eat Local

The growing movement to eat locally grown food attracts most people because it’s good for the planet. But it’s good for our own bodies too.

Those of us who have diabetes are especially concerned with good nutrition. We have to be sure to get high quality without the large quantity of food that most of our fellow Americans eat. Earlier I wrote here that we know that organic food is more nutrient dense than the standard supermarket stuff.

Likewise, food loses its nutrients as it ages. Food shipped from half way around the world can’t possibly be as fresh as food grown locally.

Farmers markets and community supported agriculture offer the most and best locally grown food. But here at the foothills of the Rockies and in much of this country we don’t have those choices for almost half of the year.

I’m certainly looking forward to this season’s farmers market when it opens here this Saturday. For the past five months I have had to rely on what natural food stores and supermarkets offer.

This week I looked to see what locally grown produce they have. I also asked the grocery clerks and store managers to point out to me what food they sell that’s locally grown.

The results of my little survey stunned me. None of the six stores here had much that local farmers grew. Considering the cold winter that’s just ending here, that’s not too surprising.

But of these four natural food stores the worst was the country’s leading natural food chain, Whole Foods Market.  This is the company that proudly states on my cloth shopping bag, “Locally Grown, Whole Foods Market supports local farmers.” The local store also has a big sign, “Our goal is to support the family farm as a vital part of America’s food production. We are closely tied to the neighborhood and support the local farmer wherever possible.”

In fact, the local Whole Foods Market at this time supports just two of these farmers. The only locally grown foods that I could – and did – buy were fresh herbs and hothouse tomatoes.

Wild Oats Natural Marketplace, the country’s second largest natural food chain, was the best of the bunch. But Wild Oats won’t exist in a few months when Whole Foods completes its purchase of the chain in a few months. The Wild Oats flagship store in nearby Superior sells the same brand of fresh herbs as Whole Foods, plus Yukon Gold organic potatoes, five types of mushrooms, bean sprouts, wheat grass, and edamame.

Vitamin Cottage Natural Grocers had locally grown potatoes and beets. The one truly local store, The Boulder Co-operative Market, had locally grown sprouts, barley grass, and yams.

I expected the supermarket chains to be even worse, even if their move into more organic produce has earned them much publicity. Safeway, however, was a pleasant surprise. It offered four types of locally grown sprouts, arugula, three types of mushrooms, and russet potatoes.

On the other hand, none of the stores did worse than the local representative of the largest supermarket chain in the country. Here we have King Soopers, the banner that Kroger flies under in Colorado. The only locally grown produce they had was hothouse tomatoes.