Food. It’s what’s for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Do you know where your food comes from? A story I’ve heard has a child asking his mother, “Why do farmers have to grow food when we can just get it at the store?” In our rush-a-day lives, we are unfortunately too preoccupied with other things than to think about from where our food actually originates. But perhaps we should be, for it is the quality of our food that is one of the determining factors of the quality of our lives.

Of all the things that the Green Revolution (see sidebar) promised us, the availability of cheap and abundant food has come true. But do we really want “cheap” food? The old adage, you get what you pay for, is true for food too. When things come down in price, it is for one of two reasons; the supply is greater than the demand, or a cheaper mode of manufacturing has been developed. With food, the former was enabled by the later.

Our nation is producing more food, but is it of the same quality that our grandparents knew? Our food comes from the earth, from the soil. The roots of the plants ‘mine’ the minerals from the soil. Over time, as large-scale agriculture has planted and removed the crops, season after season, they have not been replacing the minerals that the plants have obtained from the soil. If the minerals are not present in the soil then they will not be present in the plants. If they are not present in the plant, then they are not available to us. If our bodies are not nourished, then they start to fail, both physically and mentally.

The Green Revolution convinced the farmer to concentrate on using the ‘Big Three’ plant nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium and improved variety of seeds. (For a better understanding of the Green Revolution, see the website at http://www.foodfirst.org/media/opeds/2000/4-greenrev.html) This approach to farming, concentrating on just the N-P-K fails to recognize the importance of the other eighty-nine essential elements necessary for the human body. Over the years, chemical farming has led to a reduced availability of many of the minerals (nutrients) that our bodies need. This cheaper approach, using synthetic chemicals for fertilizing, has improved plant yields (more food) at the cost of nutritional completeness (cheap food).

In a published, peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Applied Nutrition in 1993, it was found that, on average, organic potatoes, corn, and wheat had 63% more calcium, 59% more iron, and 125% more potassium than conventional crops (http://www.all-organic-food.com/organic.htm). There are, of course, other studies that suggest that there are no marked differences between conventionally and organically grown foods. This ongoing debate about the nutritional differences may not be as important as eating fresh and in season, locally produced foods. In other words, that organic produce from California that has been in route to Texas for a week or more may be as devoid of nutrients as chemically grown foods.

Barbara Klein, Ph.D., professor of foods and nutrition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that "Green beans lose about 40 percent of their vitamin C in the first two or three days," she says. "By the time most of us would eat them, they have negligible amounts."

So, back to the question, where does your food come from? The best place would be right out of your garden. It doesn’t get fresher, and more nutritionally complete than from produce that makes that short trip from the garden to the kitchen. If growing your own is not an option, there are other ways to obtain locally grown, organic foods.
Farmers markets are one option, just be sure that you’re getting foods grown by local farmers and not food that a peddler picked at the local produce warehouse. More and more Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs are popping up. When you’re a member of a CSA you will have a box delivered to you once a week with items in-season and fresh from the farm. Farm stands are another option, however well established or small they may be. Many retired or older people like to supplement their income with a big vegetable garden. Look for them on the corners, develop a relationship, and you may have found your very own farmer! Ask your local grocery store to carry locally grown produce.

While the statistics are still out on whether or not organic foods are more nutritionally complete, common sense tells all we need to know. What would you rather eat? A bag of green beans grown with the use of synthetic chemicals in some far-off place in a soil mined for decades and picked weeks ago? Or a basket of fresh, sustainably produced synthetic chemical free, nutrient rich green beans picked yesterday?

At the Texas Organic Growers Association we are committed to providing clean and nutritious food to the citizens of Texas grown locally by Texans, for Texans. For more information, go to our website at www.texasorganicgrowers.org. This website is still a work in progress, so if you don’t find what you’re looking for, please call either Louise Placek our Executive Director at (877) 326-5175 or myself at (512) 303-4769. You will find our email addresses on the website.