Find Your Farmer

     In honor of food day, I want to ask everyone to make a concerted effort to find and utilize your local farmers and ranchers.  This is a movement that is similar to the going green movement where groups are trying to encourage the world to reduce, reuse, and recycle.  Going green will definitely cut down on the extremely high amount of resources that are used but so will buying local.
     We all know that gasoline prices are out of control and we've all heard about resourceful ways to decrease the use of gasoline but what I think that most people forget about is the gasoline that's used to transport and supply all of the food that we find in the stores.  Going local will not eliminate the usage of gasoline but it will decrease it considerably.  For example, my wife and I went to a wedding in Crested Butte, Coloardo a few months ago and while there, we decided to visit a local farmers market.  We bought local honey, goat cheese, and lemon cucumbers.  These items were not only cheap, they were delicious.
     What's also exciting is that you can typically purchase items from local suppliers, farmers markets, or artisan markets that you wouldn't readily find in the local grocery store.  How often do you see lemon cucumbers in the local grocery store?  On top of that, the items in the grocery store only wish to have the same flavor.  Take apples for example, when going to your local grocery store, these apples look great.  They're large and plump and they have this great shine to them.  Did you know that naturally, or organically grown apples generally are not supposed to be that big?  Did you also know that the shine of those apples is wax?  None of this will harm you but why eat something like that if you have the option of getting something local thats much more delicious. 
     While not all produce is locally available, there will be plenty of options to choose from.  Consider the season and try and make the effort to use something local and support the locals that work so hard to bring something delicious to your table.