Finding the Good Stuff: Great Places to Find Local, Sustainable, Organic Food

It’s one thing to talk about eating local, sustainable, organic food, but another to have time to hunt for it and buy it. In a lot of places, finding good, real food in the grocery store is like pulling teeth. Molars. On a recent trip to my local chain grocery store’s meat, cheese, and produce departments I calculated that fewer than 5% of the products offered for sale came from my own state, and Colorado isn’t exactly an agricultural desert. Even in the faux-chalet fancy cheese display, there were only 10 local brands among the roughly 200 options available.

Although activists and activist-wannabes always recommend that you “Demand it from your store and make them stock what you want,” (and on paper, that’s great advice) when I’m in a hurry to get some calories in my belly I don’t feel like fighting with the deli lady about getting me some goat cheese that hasn’t come from 1000 miles away. Here are some less in-your-face ways to find out where to get foods that are local, organic, sustainably-raised, grass-fed—whatever your preference is.

But one caveat: Before you go on a quest, consider how you’ll keep track of what you find. (I can’t even count the number of times I’ve stumbled on an awesome wine, cheese, furniture-maker, or nifty green gadget that would forever change my life and promised myself I’d remember to go back and check it out later. Uh, yeah.) Use Evernote, use a mobile app, use a cheapo notebook from the dollar store, but try to keep track when & where you find something you really love, so you can go back and find it again.

So, now that I’ve said that, here are some good ways to source local/organic/sustainable foods wherever you are:

• Visit the biggest farmers’ market, street market, fresh market, or other uber-fresh food source in your area during the summer. Meet the people selling the things you like to eat. Sample them. See if you like them (either the people or the food or, ideally, both). Jot down their name/number or take a brochure.
• Try a a mobile app. The Eat Local, Locavore, InBloom, Clean Plates and Greenmarkets Buddy are great places to start.
• Check out the web site of your state or county’s Agriculture Department. Many of them are now on the locavore bandwagon and now track and promote local food producers with a brochure, database, or guide.
• Google, Facebook, and even Craigslist are your friends. Even better, the web now has several really terrific directory/search engines that help you find exactly what you want:

Local Harvest
https://localharvest.org

Founded in 1998, LocalHarvest has become the most popular online organic/local food directory in the U.S. (see below for international guides) In addition to usual categories of family farms, CSAs, farmers’ markets and restaurants, LH is a great place to also find meat producers and other small family-run business near you that you might not ever know about. For example, in testing their search engine I just discovered a source for organic eggs less than a mile from our home. Who knew?

Eat Well Guide
https://eatwellguide.org

Eat Well Guide’s free online directory of local, organic & sustainable listings includes family farms, restaurants, farmers’ markets, grocery stores, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs, U-pick orchards and more in the United States and Canada. It’s searchable by location (zip code or city/state/province), by keyword, by category or by product to find local food sources. Neat tools include a feature that allows you to save listings in your own online notebook, or use the create-a-guide feature to generate a customized PDF booklet to download and/or share with your friends. For folks wanting to plan a foodie vacation (take me with you!!) you can plan a trip with its cool mapping tool, Eat Well Everywhere.

Farm Plate
https://www.farmplate.com/

FarmPlate bills itself as an online community of farmers, fishermen, foragers, food and drink artisans(?!), restaurants, markets and foodies. In addition to a searchable mammoth directory of the above categories, the site also has the same sort of rating/review star system used by Yelp, all aimed at helping people find food & drink they can feel good about. What I like most about it—and I like everything about it—is that it helps consumers find what they want WHILE boosting the businesses of those producing real, healthy, sustainable food, which makes me very happy.

Eat Wild
https://www.eatwild.com/products/index.html

For those who eat meat, EatWild.com is all about animal products. In addition to providing the Eatwild Directory of Farmers, a state-by-state listing of local farms that sell all-natural, grass-fed animal products (and also including some eggs, dairy, seafood, honey, etc.) it’s a very good education in the benefits of raising animals on pasture. Good information here on the health benefits of eating pastured beef/pork/chicken/bison etc., as well as a good description of how it improves the welfare of the animals and the health of the land. Of particular interest is the section on producers who ship.

International Sustainable Eating Guides
https://www.eatwellguide.org/i.php?id=international

There is no one definitive global resource to find local/sustainable/organic foodstuffs, although most countries have numerous resources similar to the U.S. listings above. Eat Well Guide has provided this nice roundup of resources by continent and country: https://www.eatwellguide.org/i.php?id=international

Looking for something near you, but can’t seem to find it? Maybe I can help. Leave a note below or drop me a line and let me know how it’s going for you.

Also, if you have a line on local/sustainable/organic/real food directories from other parts of the globe, I’m all ears!

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Category: Food, Local, Organic, Products (Green and hedonistic), Sustainable, Useful Stuff