How to eat fresh Obtaining local food is fairly simple. Beyond the method closest to home — growing your own — a little searching online, or asking around the community, can provide a bountiful harvest of options. Whatever method you choose, you’ll be helping to support the local farming community. This strengthens the connection between the producer and the consumer and helps all of us, including our children, remember that food comes from the farm, not the grocery store. NC Farm Fresh (www.ncfarmfresh.com/farms.asp) can help you locate a market, a pick-your-own farm, a CSA (see below), or even a specific fruit, vegetable or product. Eatwild (www.eatwild.com) will help you locate pasture-raised livestock and poultry. If you live in western North Carolina, the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project annually provides their in-depth Local Food Guide in both a print and online version (www.asapconnections.org/local foodguide.html). Wherever you purchase, be sure to ask if the product was grown nearby — when local items are not available, they can be trucked in from miles away, just as in the grocery store. Consumer-Supported Agriculture involves purchasing a farm share in advance and then receiving a portion of the in-season produce each week. If you are dedicated to eating more vegetables and to helping a local farmer, you can join a CSA. Farms vary in the types of produce available and in the amount you’d like to invest. As always with farming, there’s a risk of losing a crop and not getting exactly what you expected, so flexibility is recommended. Two great resources to help you eat seasonal local food are two cookbooks: “Simply in Season,” published by Herald Press, gives a wealth of seasonal recipes for fruits, vegetables, and herbs, each indexed separately for ease of access. “From Asparagus to Zucchini,” published by the Madison Area CSA Coalition, is organized by vegetable or herb, with related recipes grouped together. Amy Ney is a freelance writer in Canton and a member of Haywood EMC.
My husband and I pick up our weekly CSA produce.
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