I recorded tonight's show so that I wouldn't miss it. On the show tonight, one of their segments was about the rising cost of food and "food desserts."
While talking about the food desserts in urban metropolitan areas, they made mention of community, school, and small backyard gardens, and how more and more people were planting vegetable gardens.
The show then turned to focus on the rising costs of food. They interviewed a variety of people at a local produce market in Baton Rouge. I remember one lady saying how just the other day she had purchased a small package of chicken wings for about 12 dollars and thinking to myself that sanderson farms poultry plant, or as sky and I refer to it as the "chicken death farm", is right up the road.
While I was listening to the interviews and other topics on the program, I couldn't help but think on the topic of high food prices and came up with a solution.
I understand that gas prices keep rising, which baffles me since Louisiana and Texas are two of the biggest manufacturing ports of oil and gas in this country. I still don't understand, completely, the dependancey on foreign oil. I do understand the greed of the oil companies and our government, but that's a topic for another time.
So,with the cost of fuel sky rocketing out of control causing the price of food and other essential needs to go up and the "food desserts" in poor neighborhoods and metropolitan areas, the solution seems to be a no brainier.
Aside from buying only locally grown vegetables, fruits, and meat from small local or family farms, which everyone should be doing anyway, we should all be growing,and /or,raising our own food.
I know not everyone has acrage or even large backyards, but you really don't need them for a simple private vegetable garden or even to raise a couple of hens.
When you grow your own vegetables, the bennifits really do cancel out any downfalls. Think about it, when you grow your own produce or even raise your own meat, you know exactly what goes into the soil for the plants, where the plants came from, what fertilizers are used
(Whether chemical or organic), what types of pest control was used, and what, if any, diseases the plants may have had. The same goes for livestock, you know what the animals are eating, if they were vaccinated, sick or healthy, where they came from, how old they were, how well they were cared for and treated, and how and in what manner they died, not to mention the money saved from growing or raising your own food.
Now granted, you can't live solely on your own vegetables....... At first. You know, there's that whole planting and waiting for the plants to grow stage.Then you have to wait for the vegetables and fruits to start growing and ripening. A person could starve to death while waiting for the garden to grow...lol.
So this is where buying locally grown food comes into play. While waiting on your garden to grow, only buy from the local farmers market for your produce and if your farmers market has a local farmer selling his/ or her own farm raised meats,eggs,and dairy products you're in luck, if not find a local livestock farm that sells to the public. The reason for this is that, not only are you supporting your local farmers, but the prices are usually better since they don't have high shipping costs tacked on to the price of the food, the food that you are buying is healthier for you, and it's fresher then what is normally found in the grocery stores, God only knows how long those "fresh" meats have been frozen for or if it's been sitting there on the shelf for two weeks because it didn't look bad and the stock crew didn't think it necessary to rotate the stock that morning.its also not usually genetically altered or pumped full of chemicals and steroids. The other best part about buying from local farmers is that 9 times out of 10 you are either buying directly from the farmers themselves or you can sometimes visit the farms where your food came from, which is nearly impossible to do if your produce came from another state or country.
Basically all of this boils down to knowing where your food comes from, saving money on your food bill while eating healthier, and being (to some degree) self sufficient.
Remember, you don't need a huge backyard or small farm to grow vegetables or raise a couple chickens. Even if you live in an apartment or condo, You may not be able to grow vegetables outside, but you can grow most vegetables such as tomatoes indoors with the help of grow lights. And unless you have some strange, unrealistic land lord most apartment complexes and condos will allow you to have plants on patios or balconies, although they may not feel the same way about you raising chickens... I'd save that for people who have houses and even a small backyard...lol.
There is NO excuse not to at least grow your own produce.
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