Buy Organic Or Buy Local?

I've always been a supporter of buying locally grown fruits and vegetables. It just makes sense that the faster they make it to your table, the better they will taste, the lesser the need for preservatives, and the higher the nutritional content. Also, shorter travel means less pollution and lower storage costs. As an added bonus, you support local businesses.

If you don't have a good grocer nearby that carries a selection of local grown items, you can try to buy a share of a local farmer's output. I have friends who do this and they love it - they get a box of fresh fruits and vegetables each week, whatever is in season. Local Harvest is an excellent link to help find one near you. I love that site.

If you are very strict about this, you only buy what is in season. This can be limiting. On a positive note, though, you are sure to introduce to your children a wide variety of fruits and vegetables over the course of the year, rather than sticking to the same things all of the time. Your kids will learn to be more flexible in what they eat and you will learn how to prepare a wider variety of foods.

But there are certain foods that I always try to buy organic. Dairy, poultry, eggs, orange juice and the fruits and vegetables we eat a lot of (spinach, bananas, carrots, bell peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, grapes, tomatoes, avocado). Organic meat is a bit harder to find, but I do strive to buy it whenever possible. When I can't find organic meat, I can usually find decent all-natural cuts. I don't bother with organic fish - instead, I focus on wild-caught and I rarely buy the big fish due to their typically higher mercury content. Everything else is all natural, at the very least.

This year, I hope to start my own organic fruit and vegetable garden, so expect to see quite a lot of blogging about that. That is, if I can get rid of the massive population of grasshoppers in my backyard! I am open to any suggestions that are non-toxic yet more effective than a big shoe.