Why You Should “Eat Local” At Thanksgiving And Christmas

“Eat Local” doesn’t only mean dining at a local restaurant. It also refers to buying locally sourced food grown by farmers near you.

I love Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. Time to relax, celebrate family and remind myself to be grateful for what I’ve received. And of course there’s the feast each day, during which I’m particularly grateful to be married to a highly trained chef.

But the deeper I go into researching where and how our nation’s food is grown, how it’s harvested, and how it ultimately arrives at local markets, the more I realize how vitally important it is to support local farms and “eat local”.

$Billions are spent on food during the holidays

Americans will spend almost $3 Billion on Thanksgiving dinner alone. The carbon footprint of growing and transporting that much food is simply astounding. If you live in Boston and you buy organic string beans shipped from California, you’ve helped to support a supply chain that stretches for roughly three thousand miles and contributes to climate change. When you “eat local“, that carbon footprint is substantially reduced and you’re benefitting growers who are local to you as well.

Plan your holiday meals with a focus on locally sourced food

When planning your Thanksgiving feast and other holiday meals this year, make an effort to support the local growers and farmers markets in your area (see the link below). On our Thanksgiving table we’ll have a traditional turkey raised on a local farm. I’ll buy it fresh and I’ll pay more for it than the turkeys at my local supermarket. But I don’t mind. We’ll also be eating potatoes and onions grown in my organic garden (practically zero carbon output on those), which I’ve stored in a bin in my garage since harvesting them. We’ll be shopping for the rest of our meal at local farmers markets.

When we support local farms, we not only get a better quality of food, we also keep money circulating in our communities, which is of great importance. How and where you spend your food dollars definitely matters and will help to drive change in our food system towards healthier choices.

Minimize leftover food and make good use of it

Plan your Christmas and Thanksgiving meals according to how many will be attending, so that you have a minimum of leftovers or waste. On Black Friday every year, I make turkey soup from the carcass so nothing from the bird goes to waste. And after dinner, remember to save everyone’s table scraps (sans turkey and bones) for your compost pile!

To find a grower who sells turkeys in your area, visit Local Harvest.