I was in Rousse's the other day and welcoming me as I entered the store was a sign saying 'Buy Local'. They had zucchini, eggplant, and some other vegetables with signs indicating they are locally grown. I was really happy to see this and bought way too much zucchini. Throughout the produce section of the store I began to notice signs on almost everything. 'Product of Mexico' or 'Product of USA'.
I guess it's good they are informing people of where their food is coming from, but even if we don't want to buy something that has travelled such a long distance there isn't really a choice - at least not at this store. We know where it came from, but now what? We could go to a different grocery store, one that probably doesn't even tell us where the food is from. Or, we could go to one of the local farmers markets and buy something in season. This does mean making two (if not more) trips to buy the food you're looking for, but we'll be supporting our own community. Let's not forget about the actual taste difference in homegrown food! It's amazing how little we've come to expect from our store bought produce. If it looks like a tomato, it must be a tomato. In the movie Food Inc. someone said we don't have real tomatoes anymore, we just have the idea of tomatoes.
In the spring we can all buy some real tomatoes at
Tuesday Market:
Uptown
9:00 - 1:00
200 Broadway Street at the river
(There is also a lady here who sells a variety really good tamales!)
Thursday Market:
Mid-City
3:00-7:00
3700 Orleans Avenue at the bayou
Saturday Market:
Downtown
8:00-Noon
700 Magazine St at Girod St.
I too always get a warm fuzzy feeling when I see that made in the USA sticker and I can drive home feeling as though I've shrunk my carbon footprint. But in reality, USA doesn't mean that it's really that the produce is really that much closer than products from Mexico. In fact it probably means that it's from California, which is over a 36 hour drive from here, one I'm about to have to make. From here that means that produce from Mexico could have a smaller footprint. The only way we can really know where in the USA our tomatoes are coming from is to ask the farmer ourselves. See ya at the market.
ReplyDeleteI personally love seeing made in the USA anything! I like to support american farmers because sadly farming is really a "lost art" in america and I think we depend way WAY to much on artificial food such as fast food and junk food. In Soylent Green they don't even have or recognize real food anymore. It doesn't seem right that the earth provides us with absolutely delicious food that comes straight from nature, and people choose to eat chemically engineered crap. I think that we should all support american farmers. Perhaps one day all these chemicals will catch up to people and they'll start having babies with six eyes and three arms. Then maybe the demand for local farmers will rise again...
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