Eco Pregnancy and Baby

Buy local, feed your community well

Jennifer Cliff has always been passionate about food and wine, but learning to appreciate locally grown fare took on new meaning when she was expecting. That’s when Edible Sacramento was born along with her daughter, Parker, now 3. Cliff publishes and her husband Darren Cliff edits Edible Sacramento (ediblesacramento.com), one of 40 or so community food magazines licensed by Edible Communities, Inc.

People need to know they can help struggling local farmers maintain their family legacy just by eating the foods they produce, Cliff explains. Community farmers can use the money you spend to grow and harvest nutritious, flavorful food. It’s also easier on the environment than transporting foods over long distances. And, you can actually go to the farm where your food is grown and ask about any chemicals used on its crops.

Eating local is safer. When we eat foods from other countries, we have no way of knowing whether they contain pesticides banned in the U.S. Although the FDA and USDA monitor fruit, grain, meat and dairy products for certain banned pesticides, they only sample a relatively small number of shipments. Even worse, some toxic pesticides used in other countries aren’t on the list of federally tested chemicals, and therefore there is no way to detect them.

What you can do:

• Shop local. To find farmers markets in your area, go to the farmersmarketsusa.org.

• Grow your own For seeds and organic gardening products check out seedsofchange.com and planetnatural.com.

Tags: buy local, green business, green pregnancy, kitchen, organic food

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