A Radical Idea—Buy Local
bY Charlotte Bear
It never ceases to amaze me—the effect a single person can have by making one simple change. What if I told you, starting today, you could have a quantifiable impact on issues like soil health, air quality, clean water, food waste, plastic use, human health, animal welfare—and the list goes on. In a brave new world of chronic inflammation, climate intensification, and economic inflation, there is no doubt things are heating up, and it seems we have reached a fever pitch. So, what can we do about it?
We cast our votes, we rally, we spread the word. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like anything has budged an inch. Yet, there is actually a physical entity that intrinsically binds a human being in body, mind, and spirit with the planet itself. It’s called food.
As a functional nutritionist, I’ve come to learn that if humans could just eat soil, we would receive all the nutrition we need. But, as we are not earthworms, we rely on plants and animals—including those of the micro variety—to process and synthesize these molecules into a form that sustains life in us. The way we engage with
