It's Time to Get Local!
Eating locally grown food is better for your health, better for the environment and most importantly these days, helps to support BC farmers and producers and the BC economy.
So what is eating locally? Well it's as simple as it sounds: it is buying ingredients, produce, dairy, meat, etc. from a local farmers' market where the food comes from a local food distribution system, which can significantly reduce environmental impact.
Did you know:
- The average North American meal travels 2,400 km to get from the field to our plate and contains ingredients from at least 5 other countries.
- When food is transported lengthy distances, a lot of fossil fuels are burnt, creating greenhouse gas emissions. This emits toxic chemicals that contribute to air pollution, acid rain and global warming.
- A study by Toronto's "Food Share" found that a meal produced with ingredients from a local farmers' market traveled 101 km.
Local produce is the freshest produce you can buy. It is picked when it is fully ripe and delivered to you quicker than produce imported from another province, country, or continent. Imported produce is picked weeks before it is ripe, and often, the nutrients, taste, texture, and colour have not fully developed, which can result in the produce being gassed to create a pleasing, healthy appearance to the consumer.
Choosing local food also contributes to our provincial economy and helps BC's 20,000 farms stay in business. When we buy a local food product, the producer receives a higher percentage of our food dollar (and at a farmers’ market or on-farm store, 100%!)
What's available in Metro Vancouver for February?Vegetables: Beans (dried), beets, cabbage (green & red), cucumbers, garlic (dried), kale, leeks, onions (red & yellow), parsnips, potatoes, rutabagas, shallots, squash (winter), turnips (white)
Fruit: Apples
Meat & Dairy: Dairy Products, eggs, beef, buffalo, buffalo, chicken, duck, goat, lamb, pork, rabbit, turkey
Seafood: Clams, cod (Pacific), crab, Dungeness crab, flounder/sole (Pacific), mussles, oysters (Pacific), prawns (jumbo), sablefish (black cod), scallops, shrimp (side stripe, west coast)
Herbs: Bay leaves, chervil, cilantro, rosemary, sage, savory (winter), thyme
Etc: Honey, Mushrooms, Nuts
Where to Shop for Local Food: * Capers Whole Foods Market (Vancouver, West Vancouver)
* Choices Markets (Lower Mainland - various locations)
* Drive Organics (Vancouver - 1045 Commercial Drive)
* East End Food Cooperative (Vancouver - East)
* Edible British Columbia (Vancouver - Granville Island)
* Fraser Valley Farm Direct Marketing Association (Fraser Valley)
* Hopcott Premium Meats (Pitt Meadows)
* The Organic Grocer (Surrey)
* Planet Organic Market (Port Coquitlam)
* spud! (Vancouver - Granville Island)
* Stong's Markets Ltd. (Vancouver - West)
* UBC Farm (Vancouver - West)
* West Valley Market (Vancouver - Downtown)
* Vancouver Farmers Markets (Vancouver - various locations)
Information courtesy of
www.getlocal.org
