The day where most of us mark as being safe garden starting time in Colorado. It’s time to get our garden on, start to grow our own food, enjoy some good ol’ horticultural therapy and get dirrrrrtay!

I know that not everyone in this world enjoys the art and pleasure of gardening and growing food, however I do, and I am sure many of you reading do as well and probably already have your plans set for this year.

This harvest season I wanted to share my favourite ways of getting yourself kick started and ready to garden with ease! It doesn’t have to be difficult, you don’t have to grow from seed!

*A great reference to use for all sorts of other backyard gardening goodness is the gardening section in one of my very favourite magazines Urban Farm.

To Get Started:

You’ve got some options

1. Start from seed

2. Get started plants (which is what I am touching on)

Where to Get Starter Plants: 

1. Your local farmers market (from organic farmers)

2. Local farms (they will usually have these at their farm stands and stores)

3. Individuals or small businesses that sell them (my favourite is Veggiescapes here in Colorado and keep your eyes peeled because I will be doing a post on them pretty soon)

*My suggestion is to not get them from your grocery store or large gardening mega-plex like place, where you often find starter plants during the beginning of the season. My reasoning for this is you can support local agriculture and farmers by getting their plants instead.

Don’t Know A Farmer’s Market or Farm Yet?

Go to LocalHarvest, put in your city or zip code and a whole list will pop up for you.

Below are a few shots I took at the Boulder County Farmer’s Market the first times I attended this year.

Brussel sprouts, kale, peppers, basil, parsley, and many other fun things from Cure Organic Farms.

Eggplant, onions, peppers and other greens from Aspen Moon Farms

Even at the beginning of the season, you can still get your hands on a CSA share if you need one!

Baby tomatoes from Cure Organic Farm

Lovely little basil’s from Cure Organic Farm

*Cure Organic Farm is where I get my CSA from, and I am a big supporter of the work Ann and her family are doing to feed some of the Boulder community. Thank you Ann!

So, all you have to do is go enjoy yourself in the sunshine, pick out some plants, take them home and get them in the ground. You can ask farmers if they have been hardened or if you need to do so yourself.

Read up on the plants you got, learn what other plants they like to be next to (companion planting), and watch them grow.

Don’t have a backyard, garden bed, or community garden to grow your food in?

Grow in containers!

*Here are some tips for container gardening

This is actually what I have to resort to this year, although I have a huge garden in my backyard. I won’t be living in this house much longer, so I am going to container method.

Not only can you move them from place to place in your backyard or porch, but you can take them to a whole new home if you need to!

Creative salad bowl gardening from WeeBee Farms just north of Boulder and west of Longmont

There are a lot of options for growing in containers. You can do greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, berries, peppers, ground cherries, herbs, and many other fun things.

It is also worth mentioning that if you don’t want to do it all yourself, you can buy pre-made pots like this, take them home, water and reap the benefits without having to plant a thing!

Happy gardening all you locavores!

Peace and Plants,

Vanessa, The Local Food Junkie

The post How to Get Your Garden Started! appeared first on The Local Food Junkie.

I have been anticipating this upcoming weekend for a while now and I can’t wait any longer to tell you why.

Are you interested getting some of the most cutting edge health information and research that your doctor won’t tell you (and most likely doesn’t even know)? From speakers who are experts in the health industry?

Did you say yes?

How about getting it all from your own home, sitting comfortably in your yoga pants with your favourite smoothie or cup of tea? Oh and did I mention it is all FREE?!

The Food Revolution Summit starts this Saturday!

Have you heard the buzz about the Food Revolution Summit?

I’m pretty sure you are as worried about the current food chain crisis as I am.

Big agribusiness is polluting our environment, genetically engineering our food without labeling, and extracting profits at any price.

If you care, and you want to make a change, then please join me for these few days to educate ourselves on sustainability, food safety, vegetarian and plant-based foods, and other health topics.

Click here to Register:  The Food Revolution Summit!

From April 27-May 5, bestselling author John Robbins is personally interviewing 24 of the world’s top experts in movements for healthy, sustainable, humane and conscious food.

These are some of the most educated, brilliant and inspiring voices in the world today. And you can get it all online, from anywhere in the world, for no charge.

Check out the amazing speakers now!

In the Food Revolution Summit, you’ll get breakthrough insights to help you:

• Get informed and take action on GMOs

• Radically reduce your risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and Alzheimer’s, and

• Cut through the corporate lies to find out how your food choices really affect your health, happiness, and the future of life on Earth.

This local food junkie will be there. Will you join me?

Peace and Plants,

Vanessa, The Local Food Junkie

P.S. When you sign up now, you’ll get a special bonus. The Food Revolutionary Action Guide reveals medical breakthroughs the food industry hopes you never discover, and gives you the truth about GMOs and how to protect your family! Get it all, for no charge!

P.P.S. Once you get registered, please invite your friends and loved ones to this timely and important event about the future of our food and our health.

The post The Food Revolution 2013 Summit appeared first on The Local Food Junkie.

With the help of Nadine’s beautifully sublime products I not only healed my recessive gums and reversed all of the active decay in my mouth, but I even turned my dentist over to these healing products. She now recommends them to her other patients.

I am always looking for new tricks, and I have a phenomenal one for you! Ever feel the gritty grime and plaque on your teeth? Want healthier gums? We all do, right? Well these items might already be in your arsenal.

What you need for this trick:

Baking Soda Toothpaste + Apple Cider Vinegar = Super Healthy Gums!

(Remember the volcano science project in middle school when you added baking soda and vinegar together to make a fizzy reaction? This is the same kind of reaction for your teeth. Eat away that plaque!)

I use the Frankincense Fresh toothpaste by Living Libations. It leaves your teeth feeling clean for hours. It is a very alkalizing toothpaste. After using this, you will never want to use anything else (well, except more Living Libations tooth products).

All you need to do is brush your teeth. Apply either this toothpaste or baking soda over your teeth (in an exfoliating action) then take a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar and swish it around for 30 seconds. Spit. And that’s it! Voila, clean gums and teeth in seconds.

Check out the featured video for this post to see what Nadine Artemis has to say about this strategy!

To learn more about successful self dentistry and how I healed my gums and oral ecology, check out more from Living Libations. These are the products that not only correct all of my receding gum issues, but now I have beautiful pink gums and no active decay in my mouth!

Happy healthy gums to all!

Peace and Plants,

Vanessa, The Local Food Junkie.

The post Amazing Tip for Self-Dentistry! appeared first on The Local Food Junkie.

In the world of my own health, I tend to move through very different holistic approaches to my wellbeing depending on the season, how I am feeling, if I have higher stress levels, etc. I have an acute ear for my “body whisperer” senses, so I tend to implement certain food/nutrient regimens through the swings of life. Sometimes I do something for a while, fall out of it, and then come back for more of the goodness.

That brings me to my latest and greatest: cultured vegetables (just meaning fermented vegetables, a well known one is sauerkraut). And we do have a history. I went through a phase a year or so ago where I ate them everyday and made my own recipes at home with a culture starter. I think perhaps because I was a novice cultured vegetable maker that I didn’t quite fall in love with them the first go around. However, one day I had a intuitive desire telling me I needed to review the good ol’ fermented veggies for a new, full-time relationship.

Whose cultured vegetables made me fall head over heals?

As you will find out about me, anything health and food related, I try to find it local first. Local matters in my book, big time. Luckily for me, I live in a dream city for my lifestyle and right here we have a company that has not only boosted my health and overall wellbeing but also my deep love for cultured vegetables.

That would be the Zuke line by Esoteric Foods here in Boulder, CO.

My Favourite:

The Ruby Calendula. It deserves the ‘the.’

What Esoteric Foods has to say about it, “Hot pink is in this year and for a very good reason. It just makes you happy. This kraut is a sassy blend of red cabbage, saffron colored calendula blossoms and orange peel.”

Absolutely divine!

Just to show the seriousness of my aforementioned claims of deep love, see my photo below. (Yes, it is foodservice sized and I am going to consume it all! Unless I can somehow also get my partner to eat some. Perhaps I will sneak it into his superfood smoothies? :))

Why Why Why? The sourness! The sulfur! 

So you might be thinking at this point, “cultured vegetables, so you ferment them… that sounds absolutely terrible.” Yes, cultured vegetables have a very interesting new taste for many of us. Sour isn’t exactly a taste American culture develops a love for. However, once you develop the taste, you CRAVE them.

Let’s talk facts… (and build your own desire to try cultured vegetables for yourselves!)

• Cultured vegetables have a phenomenal amount of beneficial bacteria, or in other words probiotics. Probiotics are beneficial microflora that must be abundant in our health to maintain a healthy gut and therefore a healthy body. Check out the article!
• When we culture and ferment vegetables, we are exponentially increasing their nutrient value. For example, cabbage is a great base for recipes and is very high in vitamin C. Then when we culture cabbage it multiplies that amount by hundreds of times. So instead of grabbing the vitamin C drops and powders for colds, eat a cup of cultured vegetables!
• A great group to focus on are the cruciferous vegetables (kale, arugula, cabbage, etc), yes- the sulfur-rich cancer-fighting vegetables. Fermenting these vegetables makes them super-duper superfoods.
• They keep your gut clean and you cultivate a living gut-garden! Your liver, your blood, your cells, your whole body.
• Cultured vegetables eat away candida (harmful yeast) overgrowth. This will help eliminate fatigue, reduce sugar cravings, mental spaciness, and feel more grounded to name a few.
• They cleanse the colon and help eliminate harmful toxins.
• They build fantastic digestion and regularity. Not to mention, you will absorb and assimilate the nutrients in your foods significantly better.
• For many of us, our hormones are out of wack, yes they help with this too. These little veggies can correct hormone imbalances.

While this is only scratching the surface of the amazingness that is cultured vegetables, I will leave it at that. I feel that is well over an appropriate amount of proven reasoning for adding these super charged veggies into our daily routines.

I am on a cultured vegetable kick right now and I am loving it. I have certainly had an interesting past year to say the very least, and I feel a balancing taking place in my body taking over. (I eat at least a half cup with every meal or twice daily)

A Loving Note:

If you do experience any of the above, such as bad sugar cravings, remember that our health is a journey and simply adding in the good stuff is where we want to start. Don’t stress if you’re still eating a lot of sugar. Let’s not play the die-it game. We want to add in the good stuff and eventually in time the bad stuff will dissolve into our eatings past.

Let’s start a discussion!

What do you think about cultured vegetables now?

Already a cultured veggie lover? How have they influenced your health?

Want to share a recipe? Or ask for a recipe?

What else do you want to know?

Thank you all for reading. Let’s start the cultured vegetable revolution!

Peace and Plants,

Vanessa, The Local Food Junkie

The post Cultured Vegetables! Their Return Into My Diet, And Why. appeared first on The Local Food Junkie.

 The Local Food Shift and sponsoring partners are pushing full speed ahead to get us the best information, foods, events, and connections within this movement. If you want to learn where to buy, where to eat, where to learn or where to grow check out this directory! Colorado has an immense amount to offer when it comes to becoming a local foodist, or junkie of course.

Going from table to table meeting many smiling passionate faces always puts me in a great mood, it’s contagious. Organic local farmers are some of the most grounded people on this earth and you can feel their vibrance as you connect with them. Farming and gardening seems to be lost to many, which I hope we can start to turn around in the coming future of food. Companies like SOURCE Local Foods (which I am a part of!), Door to Door Organics, Mile High Organics, Alfalfa’s Market, Lucky’s Market and many others are helping us to make the local food shift a greater reality.

Who Attended:

(Not all, but some)

Ollin Farms

Growing Gardens

Pachamama Organic Farm

Red Wagon Organic Farm

Oxford Gardens

Ela Family Farms

Door to Door Organics

Mile High Organics

Cresset Farm

Tips for Becoming a Local Foodie:

-Become mindful when grocery shopping, start checking more labels to see where your food is really coming from.

-Support local restaurants that have their own local gardens or support local foods.

-Check out the Farmer’s Markets and farm stands near you.

-Get connected with the earth! Start your own garden. This could be a plot in your backyard, a community garden, or even in pots!

-Follow the Ayurvedic principles, eat produce that is in season! Click on the link for a winter eating and vata-balancing article from Boulder’s very own John Douillard.

Do you want to get involved in a CSA for this season and live in Colorado? Luckily, the time is now!

Check out the Colorado Farm Shares and CSA’s website!

You will see we are quite spoiled here in Boulder with a whooping 42 farm share or CSA options. What can I say, I am in LOVE with my city.

Do you already participate in a CSA share you love? What about farms you love? Let’s start a discussion and share some love with one another. Don’t forget to check out the featured video for this post to learn more about the Local Food Shift.

Have a beautiful week everyone!

Peace and Plants,

Vanessa, The Local Food Junkie.

The post Boulder’s Community Sustained Agriculture Fair! appeared first on The Local Food Junkie.

I am not sure how many of you are familiar with the crazy sexy cancer healer, Kris Carr, but she is absolutely radiant and fantastic. I have been following her work for quite a while and I am endlessly enlivened by her information, love, knowledge and spunk. She is well worth learning more about, especially her journey with healing from cancer that she was diagnosed with at age thirty-one. She has five books under her belt now and they are all well worth spending some time with.

Enjoy the trailer video for her Crazy Sexy Kitchen recipe book and if you feel such recipes would enhance your life and make your cells cheer with joy then I would highly suggest adding this to your kitchen’s book collection. Just watching the trailer makes my mouth water and brain buzz with inspiration!

And even more for you: check out the Crazy Sexy Life resource page!

You can also find me on the Community Boards. I share my knowledge and information with all different people that are a part of this community. This is such a phenomenal place to spend your time (much more useful than Facebook in terms of what you can gain and add to your life). Please come find me if you want help or information or of course contact me here on my website.

I dearly hope you all enjoy and can gain something beautiful from this mecca of a website that Kris Carr has created.

Love and Plants,

Vanessa

The post The Crazy Sexy Kitchen appeared first on The Local Food Junkie.

Creating a New Way of Life

-We are living in a very exciting and powerful time. On the deepest level of consciousness, a radical spiritual transformation is taking place. On the worldwide level, we are being challenged to let go of our present war of life and create and entirely new one. We are, in fact, in the process of releasing our old world and building a new world in its place.

The change begins with each individual, but as more and more individuals are being transformed, the mass consciousness is increasingly affected, and the results will be manifested in the world around us.

Say “Each day I am creating my life anew”

Surrender

Surrender is not a weakness.

There is great strength and spiritual power in it.

Through surrender, you will be free internally of any situation.

You may then find that the situations changes without any effort on your part.

In any case, you are free.

Photo Credit to Nikki

Health and Balance

After the big holidays we hit a new year many people end up sick or not feeling as well. So let’s imagine ourselves back in perfect health.

-Sit or lie down. Breathe and relax deeply. Imagine golden healing light energy all around your body. Feel it, sense it, enjoy it. Know you deserve this healing. Welcome it. Send this special, loving, healing energy to any part of you that needs it. See and feel it being healed. Picture the problem gently dissolving and flowing away. Imagine yourself in perfect health. Think of yourself in different situations feeling active, radiant, and healthy.

Say “I am now it perfect health”

-One of the basic principles of holistic health is that we cannot separate our physical body from our emotional, mental and spiritual states of being. For instance, when we have a physical disorder, it is a message for us to look deeply into our emotional and intuitive feelings, our thoughts and attitudes, to discover how we need to take better care of ourselves emotionally, mentally, or spiritually, as well as physically. With this approach, we can restore the natural harmony and balance within our being.

Say “I am balanced and healthy”

Looking Within

-The old world was based on external focus. We had come to believe that the material world was the only reality. Thus, feeling essentially lost, empty, and alone, we have continually attempted to find happiness through addiction to external things such as money, material possessions, relationships, work, fame, food, and drugs.

Today as we begin to remember our fundamental spiritual connection, we can look within for the source of our satisfaction, joy, and fulfillment.

Say “I find my spiritual connection within”

Create Your Life the Way You Want It

-Many of us have had the attitude that life is something that happens to us and that all we can do is make the best of it. It is basically a victim’s position, giving power to people and things outside of ourselves. We are beginning to realize that the power rests in us, that we can choose to create our life the way we want it to be.

Say “I am now creating my life the way I want it to be”

If you enjoy affirmations and words like these you can find many more in Reflections in the Light by Shakti Gawain. If you have any affirmations you would like to share, or any words going into the new year you have been inspired by please share!

Again, welcome to The Local Food Junkie! I cannot wait to build a digital workspace for us to use and connect through.

Love and Light, Vanessa

The post Affirmations Moving Into The New Year appeared first on The Local Food Junkie.

This year however, I came across something that made me feel like a child on Christmas morning; the MM Local Foods Harvest Share! Most of my internet activity is comprised of something either health or food related and one day I found MM Local’s blog. I fell in love within minutes and found the goods, that of course being the winter preserved food share. MM Local is creating a way for our community to eat local all year long with the best selections of local organic produce in Colorado. When we support companies like this one we are voting for and supporting our local farmers and agriculture, which I think is crucially important for our future.

MM Local Foods was created by Jim Mills and Ben Mustin, two friends who decided to leave their corporate jobs at a marketing firm to pursue something that mattered more to them, and I must say I am very pleased they did. This 3 year old company is picking up speed, recognition and all the while they are just jarring away to keep up with our communities demand. From tomatoes, pickled cucumbers, pickled beets, to peaches, pears, plums and many others MM Local has something for everyone’s dearest desires.

Get Your Jars To-Go! 

Gone Peaches!:

I  literally was so excited that I couldn’t wait to break open a jar and enliven my taste buds. Oh yes, I did go for the peaches first, obviously. What else could be more perfect than a drizzling cool fall rain and a jar of organic Palisades peaches? Nothing! That’s what. These peaches can be added to raw ice creams and desserts, oatmeal or quinoa, salsas, smoothies, and even better you can eat them directly out of the jar! You can surely feel the love from these local grown beauties.

Check out some recipes here!

What is the Harvest Share:

The Harvest Share is MM Local’s personal spin on a Community Sustained Agriculture or CSA share. The early commitment to a share allows MM Local to buy the best fruit and vegetables for the community to have during the winter.  Buying a Harvest Share enables you to get a mix of all of the delicious organic fruits and vegetables from local farms jarred during peak ripeness. It is a fantastic deal for the mix of foods offered.

What Does It Cost:

• $115 – Quarter Share (18 total jars)
• $215 – Half Share (36 total jars)
• $325 – Full Share (60 total jars)
• $575 – Partner Share (120 total jars)

Supporting Colorado Organic Farms:

Supporting MM Local benefits all of the below farms.

Agriburbia/Table Mountain Farms - Denver Metro {peppers, tomatoes}

Aloha Organic Fruit - Palisade, Colorado    {peaches}

Ela Family Farms - Hotchkiss, Colorado {peaches, pears, apples}

First Fruits Organic Farms - Paonia, Colorado    {peaches, pears, apples}

 Fossil Creek Farms - Fort Collins, Colorado {tomatoes, peppers}

Full Circle Farms - Longmont, Colorado  {tomatoes, peppers, beets, cucumbers}

Grant Family Farms - Wellington, Colorado    {tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, cabbage}

Isabelle Farm - Lafayette, Colorado    {tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers}

Kiowa Valley Organics - Roggen, Colorado  {peppers, other vegetables}

Kokopelli Farm & Produce - Palisade, Colorado    {peaches}

Morton’s Orchards - Palisade, Colorado     {peaches}

New Leaf Fruit - Delta, Colorado {peaches, pears, plums}

Ollin Farms - Longmont, Colorado     {tomatoes, peppers}

One Straw Organic Orchards - Palisade, Colorado     {plums, peaches}

Oxford Gardens - Longmont, Colorado     {beets, tomatoes}

Red Wagon Farm - Boulder, Colorado {cucumbers}

So there it is, good winter local eats do exist! Need I say more? If you are a Coloradan, surely check out the Harvest Share and see how it might awaken your winter eating.

Wishing you the BEST rest of the week ever.

Love and Light, Vanessa

The post How to Eat Local Foods During the Winter! appeared first on The Local Food Junkie.

Photo by: kineticvigilantes.com

Have you ever found that when you have an emotional, spiritual or physical need left unfulfilled for a period of time that life will start manifesting it right before your eyes? Even when you don’t create it yourself?

Let me explain; for many of us we are trying desperately to find the right diet (and when I say diet, I simply mean a style of eating, I don’t mean the hardcore South Beach Diet maddness), the one way of eating that we can love, be nurtured with, and not have residual guilt about, yet we find ourselves conflicted daily trying to make the right food choices. We attempt the die-it game and eliminate lots of foods thinking that is what the body needs. Though, sometimes suppressing those foods will lead to depriving your body of what it might really need the most.

Emotional Leveled Nuttiness:

I feel this idea mostly applies to our internal, spiritual and emotional aspect of life.

I love it when I go to a yoga class and the teacher speaks to something I am directly experiencing or feeling deeply in my life. The notion of suppressing emotions and needs is something I have really been doing all year long in relation to various areas of my life, most of which just recently came to a screaming outburst that obviously had to be handled. I had really never put my unfulfilled needs out in the open and while I suppressed them I ended up having people and situations manifest that directly related to everything I was holding in. Essentially this created opportunities for me to really realize how out of wack things were becoming for me. Though it was a long few weeks of getting everything out on the table, it’s there, it’s out and the suppression is no longer weighing on me. I am able to move forward, energized  focused and clear-minded.

For example, the community of students that also attend the Institute for Integrative Nutrition have written about this topic in our discussion forums quite often. We have shared many stories of what really lead us to attending the institution and how we want our lives to be more meaningful. I find the best stories of how we end up in careers, relationships, hobbies, etc are always the most interesting and seemingly unplanned. But really, are things unplanned? All of us search for our purpose in life in finding what our career should be and for many of us that search takes time. I do think however that the universe tends to manifest opportunities for us and we just have to take the hint. I feel for many of the IIN students (myself included) that the school found us, and not the other way around. Regardless of how the manifestations come, whether they be in the form of an ad from a local magazine you read, a friend mentioning it to you, a dream, a newsletter e-mail, a blog post, they will present themselves to us sooner or later.

This year has really been one of learning a lot about myself; my limits, habits, emotions, ways of coping with issues, among other various internal musings. It has also been a year of really learning to de-suppress myself and all of my bullshit. That is really all I can call it at this point. It has been such a cleansing process and has made me become more mindful of this life we’re in.

Ask Yourself:

Am I suppressing an important need in my life?

Do I have needs that are not being met in a relationship, in my career, in my spirituality, in my diet, etc?

Am I keeping something bottled up that I know I should express and release?

Whatever it is that you need in your life that you might be suppressing, possibly take on the role of becoming mindful and see what is being brought to you. We can allow ourselves to balance out of even the worst feelings of being unfulfilled in life, we just have to learn how! I know I still am!

Never let ‘it can’t be done’ serve as an answer in your life.

Love and Light, Vanessa

The post What We Suppress In Our Lives Manifests appeared first on The Local Food Junkie.

Delicious Orchards Farm Store in Paonia, Colorado

Why Local Foods Are AwesOMMMMMe:

1. Local foods are FRESH. Not only do fresh foods last longer but they also taste better. From the moment a piece of produce is picked, it immediately starts to degrade in nutrients. When foods are flown or driven in from thousands of miles away they are not fresh when they get to us and nor do they have the same nutrient profile that they otherwise would have if locally grown.
2. Local foods are RIPE. When I say they are ripe, I mean they are ripe! They are picked at the correct time, which is something we don’t find with conventional super market produce. Tomatoes will be picked far before ripeness and then be reddened with ethylene gas. If you don’t think you can taste the difference, trust me, you can.
   
3. Local foods are SEASONAL. In Ayurvedic medicine eating seasonally is absolutely critical. In Ayurveda we have three seasons (Spring, Summer and Winter) which bring us different foods at different times that we can load up on. I look at nutrition not on a daily scale but on a yearly scale. Eating seasonally is essentially eating in balance with nature. I will save this full discussion for another post very soon.
4. Local foods are better for the ENVIRONMENT. Let’s not participate in purchasing foods that come from thousands of miles away and creating a large carbon footprint. When we buy local and go to farm stands or farmers markets most of these foods are only short drive to attain.
5. Local foods create COMMUNITY. Farmer’s Markets bring our community together allowing us to share the experience together of supporting our local farmers and companies.
6. Local Foods support your ECONOMY. Instead of pouring our money into corporations or other countries, states or cities we can support local businesses and farmers for the work they do.

Every time we buy food to nourish ourselves we make a vote. Let’s vote for local organic foods that will help create a more sustainable world for us.

The Farm Store at Cure Organic Farm in Boulder, CO. This is where the majority of my food comes from during the season.

What Are Your Local Options?:

1. Farmer’s Markets: We have farmer’s markets popping up all over the place and they are becoming more widespread. These markets are a gathering of local companies, restaurants and of course farmers and their foods.
2. CSA’s or Community Sustained Agricultural shares: Many farms offer CSA shares for their communities. These can range from vegetable to fruit shares in a variety of sizes depending on how large your family is.
3. Locally Owned Grocery Stores: If you are lucky enough to have mindful grocery markets I find that they will try to support as much local produce as they can. In the stores here in Boulder, CO the markets label local products. If you don’t see signage in your stores I would check with a store employee.

How To Find The Goods:

LocalHarvest is the BEST resource. I spend a lot of time on this website and have found many new farms and businesses that I am starting to visit with and support. This site includes heaps of other information including events, newsletters and they also have a forum to connect.

Want to talk local? That is what I am here for! If you have anything to add or to ask, let’s hear it.

To Your Health!

Local Food Junkie Out,

Vanessa

The post Why and How to Eat Locally and Seasonally appeared first on The Local Food Junkie.