Buy Local

A few years ago, the new fad was organic foods. Buy Organic! It eliminates all pesticides, blah blah. Restaurants added this label to their menus. I'm not particularly sold on the whole organic thing. Dairy products, for example, aren't necessary to be organic. Milk from cows treated with most antibiotics and hormones is thrown away. Not a huge threat. Most veggies can be washed off. I'm much more worried about preservatives in processed foods than pesticides that are on crops fed to animals. (totally unrelated : veganism freaks me out. eating a fake cheese made from oils to make it taste like cheese worries me--I think the cheese is probably healthier. what's the point of making fake cheese anyways?)

The new fad is Buy Local, food that are grown in the immediate area. I have been totally fascinated by this since I was a kid. Growing up in the North, local foods weren't available most of the year. And when they were, lower yields drove the price up higher than the mega-farms in the Great Plains. Local foods were rare. Living in agri-rich California, is heaven. I can drive by the farms that grow my beef, veggies, and produce our milk, cheese, etc. And everything is fresher because it hasn't been shipped across the country before arriving in my kitchen. It's AWESOME! :) I think that this is my favorite part about living here.