Personal paradigm shift - eating well, eating local

I used to brush off the Madison fad of buying and eating local. People here make a big deal about it, but that's probably because it's a good idea, and it's hard to do. I've been doing a lot of reading about food systems, the Western diet, the business of nutritionism, and buying local/organic. Who can argue with the idea of supporting local farmers, knowing where your food is grown, and eating fresh, flavorful, seasonal food?

But the Western way is hard to deny. I'm accustomed to getting whatever type of food I want whenever I want - at 3 am, if I so choose. This convenience is courtesy of my local grocery stores. There are several, and many are open 24 hours a day. They are always stocked with a wide variety of food...and food-like substances...all at relatively reasonable prices.

The same cannot be said for my local farmer's market. Or the CSA (community-supported agriculture) farm down the road from which a purchase a fruit and vegetable share. Or the farmer north of here who sells me grass-fed and finished beef and pork. I can't run to the store to pick up the items I purchase from these people, nor can I buy foods that aren't currently available. Sometimes the farmer doesn't have what I'm looking for, so maybe I have to call another farmer or eat something different. And there are plenty of foods I should and do eat, such as bananas and pineapple, that I will never be able to buy from my local Wisconsin farmer.

I have to plan. I pick up my CSA share every Tuesday evening, right at the farm. But I don't know until that day what vegetables and fruit will be available for my family to eat that week. Most of the produce I get from my CSA is stuff I've never heard of before. I have to spend time not only researching what it is that I was given but also what to do with it, how to cook it, etc.

Meat is a little easier to plan for - it's not hard to cook a steak, and they (unlike my fresh vegetables - which I want to each fresh) can be frozen indefinitely and cooked when I want to eat it. But also unlike my CSA share - which I find to be reasonably-priced - grass-fed beef and pork, as well as free-range chicken and eggs, are, I have found, about twice as expensive as their grain-fed counterparts.

Without getting into the ins and outs of why grass is better than grain or why people would do well to eat more locally grown, whole foods (for that, read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food), I'm becoming more and more willing to pay the premium to support my family's health. That doesn't make it easy on the household budget, but I'm becoming increasingly aware of the importance of spending our hard-earned cash on good food that's really fresh from the (responsible) farm (and doesn't just say "farm fresh" on a package) instead of overly processed food-like substances from the grocery store or local chain restaurant.

So where does this leave me? I'm swimming in sea of information - good and bad - and I'm trying to clear my own path (and my family's path) by reading as much as I can, making decisions based on the best available information, planning and making food and health priorities in my life, and not balking at the prices of things I put into my body when those things give me health and life. There is little more important to our lives, our selves than what we put into our bodies, and I'm trying to take great care to make the right choices.