5 Reasons Why You Should Buy Local
You’ve all heard the term – ‘buy local’ or ‘support local’, but what does this actually look like in reality? And what are the benefits of consciously and consistently choosing to spend our money close to home?
You’ve all heard the term – ‘buy local’ or ‘support local’, but what does this actually look like in reality? And what are the benefits of consciously and consistently choosing to spend our money close to home?
Local food almost always means fresher, tastier, more nutrient dense food and often the presence of natural probiotics to help build locally specific immunity. When fruits or vegetables aren’t grown locally and are grown out of season – they are often picked or harvested early or before they are ready or at their best. This often means the produce is forced to ripen out of season – and therefore contains lower levels of vitamins and minerals than they would have, had they stayed in the ground or on the tree.
Local businesses generally chose to employ and pay full time staff who also live locally. The business owners and their employees will more than likely spend this money at other local businesses – for example sign-writers, hairdressers or electricians. By choosing to ‘buy local’ you contribute to this full circle economy and even play a small part in helping create jobs for your friends and neighbours. Look at it as a way of investing in your community – through the strengthening of social and economic opportunities.
When you buy local, you can guarantee you are supporting and buying from real people. More often than not, you are supporting small, family businesses, who are working hard to provide for their families. Buying local can be seen as a powerful exchange of value between people – through food or money – both are necessities for all humans to survive and thrive in this world. It can also be said that nothing tastes as good as food grown for people, by people, especially when it’s people you know.
By choosing to eat locally, we allow ourselves the opportunity to be physically connected to a place, everything from the microbiomes in the dirt to the taste of the land upon which the food has been grown. It also helps build a stronger emotional connection to nature and our immediate surroundings – connecting us directly to the ground we stand on, the air we breathe and the place we get to call home.
When you support locally grown food, beverage and produce, you are reducing transport costs, cutting food miles and reducing the need for excess packaging. It also means you can skip out on all the unnecessary additives and ingredients associated with making food last longer – so the food can remain in it’s pure unadulterated state and taste the way it should!
When you buy local, especially from our farmers’ markets, you can even take your own bag and get your hands on the freshest and most flavourful produce, whilst reducing waste and contributing to a healthier you and a healthier planet.