Buy Local, Eat Organic

Be good to your body by eating whole foods and whenever possible, eating organic. There are personal as well as environmental benefits to buying local and whole/organic food.

• Taste. It’s basic logic. Food doesn’t have be transported as far, so food doesn’t have to be harvested early, resulting in tasty fresh vegetables and naturally sweeter fruits.
• Healthier with less extra questionable stuff. Processed food are full of additives because vitamins are stripped or don’t exist to begin with. Natural taste is replaced with chemical manmade flavors. One of my favorite trivia facts is that we consume so many preservatives that after we die, the decomposition of our corpses is actually slowed. Interesting. (I read this somewhere a long time ago and can’t recall the source.)
  • Michael Pollan: Don’t Eat Anything That Doesn’t Rot

I make an effort to eat whole foods as much as possible by avoiding processed food and in particular corn syrup (so many edible products contain corn syrup!). The next step is to eat organic. Organic vegetables may be smaller and not as aesthetically pleasing looking as their dyed, waxed and buffed bionic (GM) counterparts. However, organic vegetables are natural and taste better. For years, the higher cost of organic vegetables deterred me from purchasing them, however, once I took the leap and tasted the difference, I haven’t looked back. I’m not militant about buying all organic produce all the time, but try to do so in particular when purchasing greens. If you want to start eating organic, I recommend focusing on fresh produce, where you can notice a marked difference especially when eaten raw. For example, lettuce in a salad is much more flavorful, however, it will tend to wilt faster if not stored properly.

I like to think that the higher cost of buying organic is worth the cost for products you put into your body. Those who are budget conscious and frugal can make the leap by being selective of which organic products one chooses to purchase and by prioritizing, i.e. reduce spending elsewhere or eating out or taking out less frequently.

CSA: Community-Supported Agriculture
Support your community farmers, buy local, buy organic and cook in season in one easy step. A friend in grad school, who had belonged to one in Madison, introduced me to CSAs or Community Supported Agriculture. With a CSA, members purchase a season worth of harvest from a local farm that they then pick up weekly from a designated location. While in Syracuse, my roommate and I joined a CSA for a season, but we received more vegetables than we could cook and consume. This experience turned me on to organic vegetables and an added benefit is that you cook vegetables in season without any need for forethought and planning.

Find a local CSA or farmer’s market in Massachusetts

Farms with CSA pick-up locations in Cambridge
Red Fire Farm
Stone Soup Farm

Farmer’s Markets
BuyFresh.com, Essex County & the Merrimack Valley
Search database by pickup locations/seasons to find CSA and farmer’s markets.