The Benefits of Buying and Eating Locally

At communEATi, we’re pretty big advocates of eating locally grown foods. That probably could have gone without saying, considering our program is all about connecting buyers and sellers of locally grown foods, but it really is important to your health, the economy, and our world that people start buying and eating local. Keep reading to see why!

Health Benefits
Fresh food, overall, is better for you. Eating local and organic food means you are eating fresh food that is rich in a wide variety of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and enzymes. Foods that need to be transported long distances are often harvested prematurely to increase shelf life, which sacrifices their nutritional value. And the more steps between you and your food’s source, the more chances there are for contamination.

Foods grown and harvested by corporations can also be genetically modified and/or contain chemicals and residual pesticides to ensure their crop is grown according to their regulations and will remain fresh when it’s sent to far off places. Local and organic foods, on the other hand, offer you a wide variety of fresh, nutritional food without any modifications or additives.

Taking care of yourself by becoming consciously aware of where your food comes from and what’s put in it can empower you to continue to make healthier decisions and improve your overall health.

Help the Environment
Not only are they harmful to human health, but GMOs and pesticides dramatically impact the environment. In commercial farming, the use of pesticides and GMOs obliterates biodiversity which contributes to major issues like bee colony collapse disorder. Well-managed family farms are places where the resources of fertile soil and clean water are valued; according to some estimates, farmers who practice conservation tillage could sequester 12-14% of the carbon emitted by vehicles and industry. Commercial farms, however, follow a commercial monoculture when it comes to agriculture, which is a major contributor to soil degradation as well as air and water pollution. Save the environment, eat local.

Protect Future Generations
Nearly all of the processes in the modern food system are reliant on oil, which, if we’re not careful, could be exhausted by 2040. If we don’t change our ways, our planet will not be able to sustain future generations. Norman J. Church says in his article on food and oil dependency, “One shopping basket of 26 imported organic products could have travelled 241,000 km and released as much CO2 into the atmosphere as an average 4 bedroom household does through cooking meals over eight months.” Agriculture is also considered the thirstiest industry on the planet, consuming 72% of all global freshwater.

By supporting local farmers, you can help decrease the use of oil, water, and carbon emissions in our food system, as well as help ensure that there will be farms in your community tomorrow and that future generations will have access to nourishing, flavorful, and abundant food.

Build a CommunEATi
When we buy locally, we have an amazing opportunity to support our neighbors and nourish our bodies at the same time. Today’s farmer receives less than 10 cents of the retail food dollar. Buying locally and using communEATi to eliminate the middleman ensures a higher profit for the farmer, who will then circulate his/her profits throughout the community with local merchants, creating a cycle that helps to build a strong local economy. Community gardens, farm shares, work exchange, and other co-operatives allow us to connect with one another and perpetuate sustainability. When we buy directly from farmers, we’re engaging in a time-honored connection between eater and grower, and working together to improve the world in which we live.

Become a part of our communEATi, and watch your community flourish! Give us a like on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates on our launch and to learn how you can #GrowYourThanksgiving!

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Veterans Day and Victory Gardens

Happy Veterans Day from communEATi!
This week, the communEATi team would like to take the time to focus on a very special November holiday: Veterans Day. It might not be the most fun holiday in November, but Veterans Day is incredibly important to our nation as it gives us the opportunity to honor and thank those who have served in our Armed Forces in a way that will never be able to match the risks they’ve faced.

The celebration of Veterans Day began after World War I as a way to commemorate the ceasefire that occurred November 11, 1918 between the Allied nations and Germany that ended the war that was to end all wars. Less than 25 years later, the United States would enter into World War II and, once again, call upon its citizens to become veterans.

As has happened in other times of conflict, the American people rallied and riveted, doing everything they could on the homefront during these world wars in an effort to help their loved ones overseas. Part of this effort came in the form of Victory Gardens.

How Homegrown Foods Aided the War Effort
Victory Gardens, also called war gardens, were vegetable, fruit, and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks during World War I and World War II in order to reduce pressure on the public food supply. Posters and ads were everywhere, urging citizens to “Dig On for Victory;” trains, which would normally transport goods between states, were now being used to transport soldiers; and canned vegetables, which could be sent overseas, were rationed. Besides indirectly aiding the war effort, these gardens were also considered a civil morale booster because gardeners could feel empowered by their contribution of labor.

At their peak, there were more than 20 million Victory Gardens planted across the United States. People with no yards planted small gardens in window boxes or larger rooftop gardens, and many schools across the country planted them on their school grounds and used the produce in school lunches. By 1944, Victory Gardens were responsible for producing 40% of all vegetables grown in the US.

Many different types of vegetables were grown in Victory Gardens: tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, beets, and peas, to name a few. Victory Gardens are also considered responsible for bringing Swiss chard and kohlrabi (a type of cabbage) onto the American dinner table because they were easy to grow.

Victory Gardens Today
While Victory Gardens lost their steam after World War II, there are efforts to revive the movement today. Victory Garden Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering communities to grow their own food, sees the new Victory Gardens as a fight of their own: “We are fighting for food security and the health of our ecosystems. We are fighting for resilient communities that support one another and for strong local economies,” their website states. And Food Not Lawns, an all-volunteer organization, works to educate communities about the health and economic benefits of using your yard for gardening, not landscaping.

The benefits of Victory Gardens - and their modern-day equivalents - definitely seem worth the effort. So if you plan on getting a modern-day Victory Garden up and running, you should really get to know communEATi; we’ll help you make the most of those homegrown goodies!

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Introducing communEATi!

Have you ever been snooping around Craigslist and thought, “Now this is nice, but what it needs is homegrown produce, like fruits and vegetables, to really round it out.” Okay, maybe not, but think about it: freshly grown foods and other homestyle goodies available to you from farmers and growers right in your community. That doesn’t sound too bad, does it?

Well that’s the premise for SPAN Enterprises’s newest product: communEATi! An online marketplace available on any device, communEATi aims to bring small farmers, hobbyists, and others together with local consumers. Think of communEATi as your Craigslist for crops.

You can easily buy or sell homegrown foods through communEATi’s program. communEATi accepts sellers of all kinds, whether you’re an established farmer selling multiple crops or a backyard grower with an overly fruitful tomato plant. And we’ll set you up with all sorts of buyers too: from individuals, to restaurants, to farmer’s co-ops, all in your community.

We’re starting out a little small at communEATi, but that’s the best way to grow, isn’t it? We’re currently offering buying and selling of fruits and vegetables through our program. Once we’ve gotten through the legalities, you’ll be able to sell other homegrown goodies through communEATi, like meat and dairy products, nuts, and flowers.

communEATi is a great way to make a little extra money and/or get deliciously fresh, local foods for your kitchen, but we admit we do have a hidden agenda. In addition to this and all of the other benefits of selling and eating locally grown food, communEATi aims to bring people together, to honor that long-standing connection between eater and grower, between the persons who make up a community.

communEATi is available online and can also be downloaded to your smartphone through the App Store or Google Play, that way you’re never far away from homegrown produce, or from potential customers. So what are you waiting for? Give communEATi a try today!

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