Eggceptional!

I love hunting for wonderful local foods for my family. Bountiful baskets, local farms and their markets or growing your own backyard garden are all wonderful places to start. There are so many offerings from apples to freshly baked bread to organic free range beef. I know it is easier to march right down to your local supermarket chain and purchase what you need, so you probably think I have just lost my mind by encouraging you to look for local finds. Well, here are a couple things that may change your mind!

1. Be a friend to the environment: Locally produced foods require fewer fossil fuels to reach your kitchen table and many are organic and do not use harmful pesticides that can harm the Earth and our bodies.

2. Support your local economy: By supporting your local farmers, you are putting nearly 90% of your money back into the economy and making it possible for a family that farms in an environmentally-conscious way to continue to serve their community.

3. Buying local and organic/free range creates a favorable supply and demand: When demand goes up, more farmers will be encouraged to farm this way making more local foods available which will also decrease consumer costs. Think of it this way...local organic food is kind of like a new tv, the first additions tend to be more costly, but when demand creates the need for increased supply, the cost of production becomes cheaper and so does the end product. Ask your local grocer to carry more locally produced products. Squeaky wheel gets the grease!

4. Access to fresher foods: Did you know the average carrot has to travel over 1800 miles to reach your table? In that amount of time, the vitamins and minerals in that carrot are beginning to degrade meaning that you have to eat more to get the same benefit. Can you imagine telling your 3 year old that he/she has to eat another carrot to get what they need?

5. Teaching opportunity for your children: These days people are very detached from understanding where their food comes from. I started a garden(that isn't doing great by the way!) so that my son see where food comes from. He helps me water, pull weeds and harvest veggies(we have tons of arugula and zucchini right now). He is filled with a sense of pride and eats his veggies more willingly because he knows he helped grow them.

The reason I am off on this local tangent is because I don't like paying the high price of free range organic eggs at the grocery store($3.50-$5/dzn), so after discussing it with a friend of mine(Hi Miss Amy!)we went on Craigslist.com and searched for local eggs! I found a family that produces more than they can eat and so now I can buy what I need each week farm fresh for $2.25/dzn. I just saved my family alot of money and we can enjoy fresher healthier eggs(much higher in Omega 3's than regular eggs). If you have never had a fresh egg, I challenge you to try one. You will be hooked!