Why Eating Local is Good for your Health

Most of us are familiar with the bumper stickers that read, Eat Local. Support Local Farms. Locavore. I’m sure there are others (can there really be too many?!?)…

The original motivation around eating local revolved around supporting local farmers vs the industrial food giants and Big Ag. Which I think is a solid, overall.

We are all well aware that buying food from small, local farmers absolutely benefits the farmer. But, who else and what else does it benefit?

By purchasing your food from small, family farmers you also support soil health in your region (as long as the farmer works to restore soil health each year using rotational grazing, cover crops, no-till, etc.); you support a thriving and self-sustainable local economy (keep in mind that over half of the shit sold on Amazon is from China).

When you choose to eat locally, you also support your health.

The connection between eating locally sourced food and your health is pretty astounding.

Before I discuss the benefits of eating local and your health I want to clarify that…

Not all locally produced food is good for your health…

Or your local economy…

Or the planet…

Or the soil.

I grew up in rural upstate New York — NYC was a 6 hour car drive away and there wasn’t a skyscraper within an hour of my house. There were however heaps of maple trees, wildlife, corn fields and dairy farmers. Conventional dairy farmers, not grass-fed raw milk dairy farmers, mind you.

To me, the supersaturation of conventional dairy farmers in upstate New York makes absolutely no logical sense. There’s more grass and native forage in upstate New York to keep thousands-upon-thousands of cows happy and content and cud chewing for many months out of the year.

But, this type of farming would require, well, that the farmer actually farm and not be a puppet to the USDA and their loans, multi-million dollar equipment and subsidies. The conventional farm system is a dying breed however and it won’t be long until it’s extinct. And, you won’t even have to resort to eating bugs as a result.

Get this…

Conventional dairy cows almost never go outside. Conventional dairy cows go outside less than inmates in the federal system. It’s that bad.

They stay inside a barn confined to their stall where they’re fed corn and other indigestible grains that make their guts so acidic that low-grade antibiotics are added to their feed (“preventative medicine”). Twice a day, they’re hooked up to a machine that drains their udders of milk.

The life expectancy of a conventional dairy cow is 2-4 years. The life expectancy of a grass-fed dairy cow is 20-25 years.

Another red flag regarding conventional dairy…you can’t even go to conventional dairy farms and purchase milk or dairy products. All of the milk from the hundreds-to-thousands of dairy cows [managed under a modern day dairy tutelage, that’s, as I mentioned, thankfully dying out] is pooled into huge stainless steel vats — a little Clorox here, a little Clorox there to kill any pathogens and off it goes to the food industry to be packaged inside of a sterile, lifeless food processing plant located far, far away from the farm.

Let’s keep on the conventional dairy red flag train…Most conventional dairy farmers don’t know how to make dairy products from their milk (as if they’d want to under such Upton Sinclair conditions)…

People used to have dairy cows as a way to feed their family and nourish their soil. Today, people have far too many cows, more than was ever intended for one family, and they don’t have them for their own nourishment nor for the nourishment of their community. They have them because it’s their job which creates a completely different relationship between the animals, the food and the product that’s produced. The cow becomes commodity, that’s it.

So, just to clarify, not all locally produced food is created equal.

The conventional dairy farmers are just one example of local foods gone bad.

There are also other local farmers who sell pesticide laden produce, GMO honey and other “farm fresh” products that are far from being produced in the idyllic rural-farmer-in-the-field, chicken-in-the-pasture kind of way.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about why eating locally is good for your health…

There are actually a multitude of reasons eating locally supports your physical, mental and emotional health. Some of these include:

1. Decreased Inflammation Levels.
   This is an extensive topic that I have recorded many podcasts about on The Primal Pioneer. To deep dive into this topic you can tune into this episode and others on The Primal Pioneer.
   
   In a nutshell, when you spend time outside in nature, under the same sunlight that grows your food, this supports optimal circadian function including the health of your mitochondria, brain and gut microbiome. When you eat foods from out of region, especially tropical foods, unless you live in a tropical environment or its the peak of summer in your area, your cells will have a more challenging time assimilating and extrapolating the nutrients from this food. Long-term, this can contribute to circadian mismatch and increased inflammation levels.
   

2. Improved Mitochondrial Health.
   Your mitochondria are responsible for making ATP energy and structured water. If you want to deep dive into the land of structured water, check out my colleague, Carrie Bennett - she’s the queen of structured water.

   
   Eating foods grown in your local environment supports optimal mitochondrial function allowing your cells to make clean, efficient energy. I extrapolate on this concept in the podcast. You can reference the video above to tune in.

   
   There are other resources that also support mitochondria health. These include The Sunlight Rx, homeopathic medicine and swimming in the ocean.
   

3. Gut Microbiome Versatility.
   Sunlight plays a major role, if not the leading role, with regard to the bacteria that live in your gut. Your body operates off of circadian clocks - these clocks determine when you sleep, when you’re awake, when you’re hungry, when you have an urge for a bowel movement and they also stimulate the production of beneficial bacteria in your gut. This is an in depth topic that I also deep dive into during the podcast. You can reference the video above to tune in.
   

4. Community Interaction.
   DYK that most people living in urban environments feel more lonely, disconnected and isolated than those living in rural areas? Of course, there are many factors that play into this. However, as someone who has experience living both rurally and in suburban environments, I can definitely attest to this. One thing I’ve noticed about living rurally is you don’t have modern conveniences at your fingertips. If you don’t feel like making dinner you can’t PostMate your food; if your cow is sick you can’t just run it to the vet; if your cow drains your well (this actually just happened to us) you can’t flip the city water switch to get your water; if you have a rattlesnake in your garden, you can’t call animal patrol and expect them to run out and take care of it for you.
   
   Rural living requires you to have a certain life skill set that’s not required for city living. And, it requires that you reach out to your neighbors who have certain skill sets that you don’t have when you need help. Because, no one else will be there for hours-to-weeks-to-days when shit hits the fan. This is also also a topic I deep dive into on the podcast.
   

5. Real Farm Experiences.
   Let’s be real. Let’s be honest. Most people have no idea where their food comes from. And, why should they? The system has trained us to not ask questions, to not care or ask where our food comes from and to just show up at the grocery store, fill our carts up and be done with the whole food buying thing. Quick. Easy. Convenient.
   
   One huge shift that we’ve made since living on a farm and raising our own meat and veggies is that the stuff in the store looks, well, bad. It doesn’t look fresh. It doesn’t look real. It looks like fruits and veggies on botox. This has become so blatantly clear to me, especially since raising our own food, that I’ll no longer buy my produce in the grocery store.
   
   And, whatever we don’t grow on our farm, we get from other farmers in our area. By doing so, not only do we get super fresh, locally grown produce, we also get to interact with the farmers. We get to step foot on their soil. We get to see how they do things and learn from them. And, we get to form a relationship with the farmers and barter garden veggies for raw milk. It’s a HUGE win all around.

I hope this post helps you better understand the importance of eating locally and motivates you to grow your own food and/or adventure out to meet more farmers in your area.

~Heathar

Want to learn how to harvest your own pigs? Join for a 2-day pig harvest workshop on our farm. Learn more about the workshop, right here.

If you’re interested in learning about Heathar’s farm, you can learn more, right here.

While Heathar is a homesteader and farmer, she’s also a homeopathic practitioner. You can read about Heathar’s homeopathic practice, including healing retreats on her farm, on her Study Homeopathy Substack.