Friday, June 24, 2011

Seasonal eating and something weird going on with my blog

First of all I just want to say I'm having problems responding to my comments. It keeps directing me to the page to log in, which I do, then to the page to comment, then back to the log in. So I haven't been able to respond to my comments as of lately, but please keep them coming, as I love to hear from you all.

Seasonal eating is something I think pretty foreign to most people, but those of you that follow my blog probably get the jest of it pretty well. Living in the South does have a fairly long growing season and that makes it easier. I think that seasonality is something important to really learn for ourselves as well as to teach our children. My 5 year old can already tell you that if you are eating a fresh strawberry in December it is not from our state!
Eating in season is important for many reasons:
1) Quality of food
When you are eating something in season, it has grown to it's desired ripeness, under the conditions it was mean to grow under. Buying a local fresh peach in June provides , picked at it's ripeness provides better quality nutrients as well as taste. Most nutrients aren't even fully activated until the food is ripe. Thus when you pick a tomato 3 weeks before it is ripe, transport it 1500 miles to the supermarket, the consumer really isn't getting all the "promised" nutrients. Even vine ripened tomatoes from your garden start to lose some of it's nutrient value the moment that it is picked. That's why it makes my heart happy to see my girls picking tomatoes right from the vine and popping them in their mouth right their in the garden.
2)Environmental concerns
Going back to the tomato that was picked in Mexico, ( unless you live in a border town which we do not) it has to be transported. In a truck. Using lots of gas. Emitting lots of fumes.
There is something that strikes me very unnatural about our current food system and most of it stems from the transporting step. Even if a farm 1500 miles away can grow, pick and sell in bulk they still have lots of extra steps that you are in fact paying for. Someone has to pick that fruit or veggie for you. ( I won't go into labor concerns in this post, but that is a whole other consideration). They have to pack it, even if it's just in cardboard boxes, then they have to load it on a truck, then they have to drive it. Then someone has to load it into a warehouse, then load it back onto a truck to be distributed to the grocery store, ( again being driven) then it has to be unloaded at the store,

4 comments:

  1. Hope you figure out your comment problem. Have you asked Blogger? They have a whole section for troubleshooting.

    I so agree. Eating locally and seasonally is so much better for everyone, especially Mother Nature. Enjoy!

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  2. I had that problem the other day. I unchecked the boxed below where you sign in that says stay signed in and then re logged in and I was able to respond to comments. Every once and while I will run into problems and sometimes I'll just try again the next and it works too. Hope you now able to respond to comments now.

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  3. Just testing this out to see if the comments work.

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  4. Thanks Homestead wife! Looks like I can make comments again!

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