How Much Are You Willing To Pay For Food?

Our food choices don’t just affect us financially; they also affect our planet, health, and quality of life. The Sierra Club has started the True Cost of Food campaign to spread the word about hidden costs in mass-produced (“cheap”) food and about alternatives that are kinder to the planet and better for us.

The True Cost Of Food
by ivanwave

What we choose to eat is one area where individual decisions can make a difference. If we continue to demand better food, the supply will follow. To better understand the current state of our food system, here is a quick overview:

1. The way food is produced and the way we eat create huge costs that are not reflected in our food bills. Some are actual dollar amounts (subsidies and cleanup costs that we pay for in taxes); some are damage to the environment (pollution and loss of wildlife habitat); some are loss of quality of life (tasteless food, loss of the pleasure of preparing food and eating together); and some are health issues (obesity, diseases, poor nutrition, contaminated food).
2. Agribusiness farms employ chemical-intensive systems that pollute land, air, and water.
3. We transport much of our food from centralized factory farms - instead of buying it from local sources - which is a poor use of resources and a contributor to air and water pollution.
4. We’re losing our wild places because of wasteful agricultural practices such as uncontrolled grazing and fattening up animals with diets of factory-farm corn.
5. Americans get much of their meat from pollution-causing factory farms and feedlots.
6. More and more of our food production is controlled by a few large producers. Buying from small, independent producers allows us some input into how our food is grown.
   

This system has come about through the emphasis on short-term gains with little to no thought about long-term impacts. We can’t completely blame the food producers, processors, and retailers or our government; we consumers have also demanded this "cheap" food.

Here are a few simple things that you can do to vote for an improved food system:

1. Eat more vegetables, fruit, and grains and less meat. Look for meat that is produced in the least harmful way - grass fed, organic, antibiotic- and hormone-free
   
2. Buy organic whenever you can
   
3. Buy from small, local sources whenever you can
   

Where do I get my food from?
Personally, I am willing to pay extra upfront for healthy, sustainable, local food. I try and grow as much food as possible but also am a CSA member at Cane Creek Farm and just joined the meat CSA offered by Riverview Farms that drops off at 5 Seasons Brewing on Old Milton. To help reduce costs, I cook simple meals that use a lot of vegetables, beans, and whole grains; and use meat in moderation.

Here are a few additional few resources to help:
Alpharetta Farmers Market
Georgia Organics Local Food Guide Map
Localharvest
The Grassfed Gourmet: Healthy Cooking and Good Living with Pasture-Raised Foods