1. GMOs Are Unhealthy.

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) urges doctors to prescribe non-GMO diets for all patients. They cite animal studies showing organ damage, gastrointestinal and immune system disorders, accelerated aging, and infertility. Human studies show how genetically modified (GM) food can leave material behind inside us, possibly causing long-term problems. Genes inserted into GM soy, for example, can transfer into the DNA of bacteria living inside us, and that the toxic insecticide produced by GM corn was found in the blood of pregnant women and their unborn fetuses.

Numerous health problems increased after GMOs were introduced in 1996. The percentage of Americans with three or more chronic illnesses jumped from 7% to 13% in just 9 years; food allergies skyrocketed, and disorders such as autism, reproductive disorders, digestive problems, and others are on the rise. Although there is not sufficient research to confirm that GMOs are a contributing factor, doctors groups such as the AAEM tell us not to wait before we start protecting ourselves, and especially our children who are most at risk.

The American Public Health Association and American Nurses Association are among many medical groups that condemn the use of GM bovine growth hormone, because the milk from treated cows has more of the hormone IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor 1)―which is linked to cancer.

2. GMOs Contaminate―Forever.

GMOs cross pollinate and their seeds can travel. It is impossible to fully clean up our contaminated gene pool. Self-propagating GMO pollution will outlast the effects of global warming and nuclear waste. The potential impact is huge, threatening the health of future generations. GMO contamination has also caused economic losses for organic and non-GMO farmers who often struggle to keep their crops pure.

GMOs Increase Herbicide Use

Most GM crops are engineered to be “herbicide tolerant” – of the deadly weed killer, Roundup. Monsanto, for example, sells Roundup Ready crops, designed to survive applications of their Roundup herbicide.

Between 1996 and 2008, US farmers sprayed an extra 383 million pounds of herbicide on GMOs. Overuse of Roundup results in “superweeds,” resistant to the herbicide. This is causing farmers to use even more toxic herbicides every year. Not only does this create environmental harm, GM foods contain higher residues of toxic herbicides. Roundup, for example, is linked with sterility, hormone disruption, birth defects, and cancer.

4. Genetic Engineering Creates Dangerous Side Effects

By mixing genes from totally unrelated species, genetic engineering unleashes a host of unpredictable side effects. Moreover, irrespective of the type of genes that are inserted, the very process of creating a GM plant can result in massive collateral damage that produces new toxins, allergens, carcinogens, and nutritional deficiencies.

Read points 6 – 10 of 10 Reasons to Avoid GMOs. And start eating organic now!

From the Organic Consumers Association newsletter, Organic Bytes, 6.2.11

Over the last 10 years or so, Jeffrey Smith of the The Institute for Responsible Technology has written many articles, published several books, and travelled the world campaigning against GMO’s, speaking the truth to hundreds of groups internationally.

Ronnie Cummins, head of the Organic Consumers Association, has been a dedicated organic, non-gmo activist for at least as long as GMO’s have been part of the food supply, working and speaking his mind through the non-profit OCA.

Smith, Cummins, and other food activists like India’s Vandana Shiva, have been voices of sanity and reason, raised against a continuous flood of food industry propaganda (aka lies), lobbying, and corporate owned government. The anti-gmo campaign has been an uphill struggle on a shoestring, getting results against all odds.

Over the years, Savvy Vegetarian has published many non-GMO articles and excerpts from the OCA newsletter and The Institute for Responsible Technology.

The challenge with non-gmo information has been how to present it in clear, short bites for easy understanding, to quickly raise public awareness of this serious issue.

The majority of Americans don’t want GMO foods, but aren’t aware that over 70% of foods they eat have GMO ingredients.

In Europe, where GMO labelling is required, almost no GE crops are grown and almost no GMO foods are sold. In North America, no GMO labelling is required, the GE industry controls government agriculture and food policies, and pro-GMO mis-information is almost all that most people hear.

That’s why the work of educating the public about GMOs and the GE industry is so critically important.

Not everybody wants in-depth non-GMO education – just the facts ma’am, from trusted sources. That’s why I was delighted to see the following piece in the OCA newsletter this morning. Jeffrey Smith’s research teamed with the OCA’s copywriting skills is a winning combination.

I’ve linked to background articles where possible, so if you want the long bytes, feel free.

10 Reasons to Label GMOs – Tell Your Friends, Food Companies, & Politicians!

World Food Day is October 16, 2011. That means there are only 4 months left to get 1,000,000 people to sign our petition to label GMO foods and organize 435 Millions Against Monsanto demonstrations nationwide.

Download the petition

Getting everyone you meet to join the Millions Against Monsanto Campaign should be easy – upwards of 90% of the public already agrees that foods made with genetically modified organisms should be labeled – but if you need some ammunition and inspiration to inspire you to spread the word, look no further than these 10 Scary Reasons to Label GMOs:

#1 Monsanto’s Bt-toxin, in its Bt-producing GMO corn and cotton (used in food in the form of cottonseed oil), was found by Canadian doctors in the blood of 93% of pregnant women and 80% of the umbilical blood of their babies.

#2 The authors of the Canadian study conclude that the women and their babies were exposed to Monsanto’s GMO Bt-toxin through a “normal” non-organic Canadian diet, including non-organic (so-called “natural” and “conventional”) meat, egg, and dairy products from animals fed Bt corn.

#3 Monsanto’s GMO “Bt” corn and cotton plants are engineered to produce a insecticide in every cell of the plant that kills insects by breaking open their stomachs.

#4 Mice fed Monsanto’s Bt corn had elevated levels of immune system substances that are also higher in humans who suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, cancer, allergies, Lou Gehrig’s disease, autoimmune disease, and colitis.

#5 Young mice in the same study had elevated T-cells, which are increased in people with asthma, and in children with food allergies, juvenile arthritis, and connective tissue diseases.

#6 Monsanto’s GMO Bt-toxin has properties of known allergens – it actually fails the World Health Organization’s allergen screening tests.

#7 Monsanto’s GMO Bt-toxin has been found to bind with the small intestines in mice and with intestinal tissue in rhesus monkeys.

#8 In addition to its GMO “Bt” crops which are engineered to produce insecticide, Monsanto also produces GMO “RoundUp Ready” crops, engineered with a bacterial DNA that allows it to survive otherwise deadly doses of its herbicide RoundUp.

#9 In the only human feeding study ever published on GMOs, Monsanto’s GMO ““RoundUp Ready” soybeans were found to transfer Monsanto’s “RoundUp Ready” DNA to the bacteria living inside human intestines.

#10 According to Jeffrey Smith of the Institute for Responsible Technology, the transfer of Monsanto’s GMO Bt DNA to human digestive bacteria could create a “living pesticide factory” that could be responsible for the “increase in gastrointestinal problems, autoimmune diseases, food allergies, and childhood learning disorders – since 1996 when Bt crops came on the market.”

How to Avoid GMO’s in Your Food

Learn More

Savvy Vegetarian Non-GMO Articles

EarthTalk®: From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine

Dear Earth Talk: How healthy is soy? I heard that, despite its healthy image, most soy is grown using chemicals like other crops and is even being genetically modified. — D. Frinka, Syracuse, NY

Food products made with soy have enjoyed great popularity in the U.S. and elsewhere in recent years. Two decades ago, Americans spent $300 million a year on soy food products; today we spend over $4 billion. More and more adults are substituting soy—a great source of protein—for meat, while a quarter of all baby formula contains soy instead of milk. Many school lunch programs nationwide have added soy-based veggie burgers to their menus, as have countless restaurants, including diners and fast food chains.

And there are hundreds of other edible uses of the soy bean, which now vies with corn for the title of America’s most popular agricultural crop. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration promotes the inclusion of soy into other foods to cut down on heart attack risk. Clinical studies have shown that soy can also lower the risk for certain types of breast and prostate cancer.

But there may be a dark side to soy’s popularity and abundance. “Many of soy’s health benefits have been linked to isoflavones—plant compounds that mimic estrogen,” reports Lindsey Konkel in Environmental Health News. “But animal studies suggest that eating large amounts of those estrogenic compounds might reduce fertility in women, trigger premature puberty and disrupt development of fetuses and children.” But before you dump out all your soy foods, note that the operative phrase here is “large amounts” which, in laboratory science, can mean amounts substantially above what one would consume in real life.

Also at issue is that upwards of 90 percent of the U.S. soybean crop is grown using genetically modified (GM) seeds sold by Monsanto. These have been engineered to withstand repeated dousing with the herbicide, glyphosate (also sold by Monsanto and marketed as RoundUp). According to the nonprofit Non GMO Project, this allows soybean farmers to repeatedly spray their fields with RoundUp to kill all weeds (and other nearby plant life) except for the soybean plants they are growing.

The U.S. government permits the sale and consumption of GM foods, but many consumers aren’t so sure it’s OK to eat them—given not only the genetic tinkering but also the exposure to so much glyphosate. Due to these concerns, the European Union has had a moratorium on GM crops of all kinds since 1998.

The fact that genetically modified soy may be present in as much as 70 percent of all food products found in U.S. supermarkets means that a vast majority of Americans may be putting a lot of GM soy into their systems every day. And not just directly via cereals, breads and pasta: Some 98 percent of the U.S. soybean crop is fed to livestock, so consumers of meat, eggs and dairy are indirectly ingesting the products of scientific tinkering with unknown implications for human health.

Since GM soy has only been around and abundant for less than a decade, no one yet knows for sure what the long term health effects, if any, will be on the populations of countries such as the U.S. that swear by it. Natural foods stores like WholeFoods are your best bet for finding non-GM foods of all sorts.

CONTACTS: Environmental Health News; Non GMO Project.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E – The Environmental Magazine. Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com.

Subscribe to Earth Talk or get a Free Trial Issue.

More Information on Soy Foods and Non-GMO

Find Non-GMO Foods: True food now – Green Peace
GE Crops Risk To Food Chain
Rat Babies Died – Mothers Ate GE Soy
Seeds of Deception, Exposing Industry & Government Lies About GE Foods
Soy Isolate or TVP – Is This A Health Food?
Soy Truth: Is Soy Safe to Eat?

I’ve just started reading it, and I have to say – I haven’t been this excited about a book in a long time.

Many people who care deeply about the environment have been lulled into believing that they can keep on eating meat and dairy, if only it’s organic, local, and grass fed, while saving the environment by turning down the heat, installing fluorescent bulbs, and driving a Prius. I’ve felt for many years that this makes no sense. 

Dr. Oppenlander reveals the facts, and efficiently debunks the fairy tales about global depletion, concisely and powerfully.

From Dr. Oppenlander’s website:

Do you know the true cost that your food has on our resources? “What you choose to eat is killing our planet,” says lecturer and author Dr. Richard Oppenlander. In Comfortably Unaware, he reveals the truth about food choices and its impact on our world. Dr. Oppenlander tackles the crucial issue of “global depletion” as it relates to food choice.

“We should all be committed,” he tells us, “to understanding the reality and consequences of our diet, the footprint it makes on our environment, and seek food products that are in the best interest of all living things.” His forthright information and stark mental images are often disturbing, and that’s how it should be. As the guardians of Planet Earth, we need to be shaken out of our complacency, to stop being “comfortably unaware,” and to understand the measures we must take to ensure the health and well-being of our planet and ourselves.

Dr. Oppenlander breaks down the information in easy-to-read chapters that touch on issues ranging from the rainforests (“depleting the lungs of our planet”), to water and oceans, to the air we breathe and our atmosphere. His fresh insight on this frequently suppressed topic goes well beyond the now-familiar warnings about “global warming.” His information is essential reading; he provides entirely new perspectives on our culture and how this global crisis reached such startling proportions, as well as, most important, how to solve the problem.

Comfortably Unaware will open your eyes to the global effects of your food choices and, hopefully, will encourage you to make a difference.

“Comfortably Unaware explains, so clearly, how what we choose to eat has a direct impact on the health of Planet Earth: how modern agro-business and our thoughtless appetites are, quite literally, destroying the environment and the future of our children. I urge you to read it, to think about its message, discuss it with your friends – and start to change the world, one bite, one meal, one diet at a time.” ~ Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE, UN Messenger of Peace

Buy this book from the author - 50% of proceeds donated to organizations promoting the health of our planet, social justice, and the welfare of animals.

His timely and well researched article shows how Round-Up’s side effects are just as horrible as the effects of GMO’s on our health and the environment.  Many people have the idea that when you apply Roundup to weeds, it just magically disappears them, without harm to the soil or to other plants. Not true. Roundup is an extremely toxic chemical cocktail. 

Excerpts from Jeffrey Smith’s article on Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide:

While visiting a seed corn dealer’s demonstration plots in Iowa last fall, Dr. Don Huber walked past a soybean field and noticed a distinct line separating severely diseased yellowing soybeans on the right from healthy green plants on the left (see photo). The yellow section was suffering from Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS), a serious plant disease that ravaged the Midwest in 2009 and ’10, driving down yields and profits. Something had caused that area of soybeans to be highly susceptible and Don had a good idea what it was.

Don’s a scientist; it takes more than a few photos for him to draw conclusions. But Don’s got more—lots more. For over 20 years, Don studied Roundup’s active ingredient glyphosate. He’s one of the world’s experts. And he can rattle off study after study that eliminate any doubt that glyphosate is contributing not only to the huge increase in SDS, but to the outbreak of numerous other diseases. (See selected reading list.)

More than 30% of all herbicides sprayed anywhere contain glyphosate—the world’s bestselling weed killer. It was patented by Monsanto for use in their Roundup brand, which became more popular when they introduced “Roundup Ready” crops starting in 1996. These genetically modified (GM) plants, which now include soy, corn, cotton, canola, and sugar beets, have inserted genetic material from viruses and bacteria that allows the crops to withstand applications of normally deadly Roundup.

Monsanto incentivizes farmers who buy Roundup Ready seeds to also use the company’s Roundup brand of glyphosate. For example, they only provide warranties on the approved herbicide brands and offer discounts through their “Roundup Rewards” program. This has extended the company’s grip on the glyphosate market, even after its patent expired in 2000.)*

The herbicide doesn’t destroy plants directly. It rather cooks up a unique perfect storm of conditions that revs up disease-causing organisms in the soil, and at the same time wipes out plant defenses against those diseases. The mechanisms are well-documented but rarely cited.

On top of this perfect storm, the USDA now wants to approve Roundup Ready alfalfa, which will exacerbate this calamity. Please tell USDA Secretary Vilsack not to approve Monsanto’s alfalfa today.

Read the full article

Exposes the lies of the GMO biotech industry, specifically mentioning Monsanto, genetically modified corn, GMO foods. It also features rap lined from Jeffrey Smith of the Institute for Responsible Technology.

From Institute for Responsible Technology,  Jeffrey Smith- the world’s leading consumer advocate promoting healthier non-GMO food choices, author of Seeds of Deception

Before the FDA decided to allow GMOs into food without labeling, FDA scientists had repeatedly warned that GM foods can create unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects, including allergies, toxins, new diseases, and nutritional problems. They urged long-term safety studies, but were ignored.

Since then, findings include:

• Thousands of sheep, buffalo, and goats in India died after grazing on Bt cotton plants
• Mice eating GM corn for the long term had fewer, and smaller, babies
• More than half the babies of mother rats fed GM soy died within three weeks, and were smaller
• Testicle cells of mice and rats on a GM soy change significantly
• By the third generation, most GM soy-fed hamsters lost the ability to have babies
• Rodents fed GM corn and soy showed immune system responses and signs of toxicity
• Cooked GM soy contains as much as 7-times the amount of a known soy allergen
• Soy allergies skyrocketed by 50% in the UK, soon after GM soy was introduced
• The stomach lining of rats fed GM potatoes showed excessive cell growth, a condition that may lead to cancer.
• Studies showed organ lesions, altered liver and pancreas cells, changed enzyme levels, etc.

Unlike safety evaluations for drugs, there are no human clinical trials of GM foods. The only published human feeding experiment revealed that the genetic material inserted into GM soy transfers into bacteria living inside our intestines and continues to function. This means that long after we stop eating GM foods, we may still have their GM proteins produced continuously inside us. This could mean:

• If the antibiotic gene inserted into most GM crops were to transfer, it could create super diseases, resistant to antibiotics
• If the gene that creates Bt-toxin in GM corn were to transfer, it might turn our intestinal bacteria into living pesticide factories.

Although no studies have evaluated if antibiotic or Bt-toxin genes transfer, that is one of the key problems. The safety assessments are too superficial to even identify most of the potential dangers from GMOs. See our Health Risks brochure and State of the Science report for more details and citations.

Recent health studies provide growing evidence of harm from GMOs:

GM Corn Damages Liver and Kidneys
Meat Raised on GM Feed is Different
Roundup Could Cause Birth Defects
Genetically Modified Soy Linked to Sterility

In Fairfield IA, where I live, the city draws water from the Jordan Aquafer, and maintains a good sewer system which they are constantly upgrading. We pay for our water, but we can afford it, it’s clean, and it comes hot and cold out of taps in our house. An under-sink filter gets out the chlorine, any impurities, and the sulfur taste.

I was washing dishes the other day, and started thinking about all the ways I use water. Here’s what I did with water yesterday:

My husband and I each had a 5 minute shower, brushed our teeth twice, and flushed the toilet about a dozen times between us

It was a cleaning day, so I washed my car, washed the floors, did 3 large loads of laundry

I picked and washed 3 bunches of greens, cooked three meals and washed the dishes once by hand

We drank 1.5 gallons of water between us

I don’t know exactly how many gallons of water we used yesterday, but I’m sure it was close to 100.

Not a typical day, water wise – usually no laundry or cleaning, but still, clearly we use a luxurious amount of water in our day-to-day lives. We have low flow faucets, showerheads and toilets, turn off the water while we brush, fix water leaks, don’t water our lawn or garden, never drink bottled water, eat a vegan diet, don’t own cell phones or buy much stuff, but we could do a lot more to conserve water. I know that.

The thought rarely crosses our minds that we could ever get sick from our water. Compared to people living where water is scarce and polluted, we are extremely fortunate.

Contrast our water situation with that of most people in the world!

Water.org has a few sobering facts about water usage in the developing world, where much of the world’s human population lives.

• The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.
• On average, women in developing countries walk 3.7 miles a day to collect water.
• When rain falls from the sky it’s free. To move it where families need it costs money or time.
• We know how to bring people clean water and improved sanitation. We’re not waiting for a magic cure. And the solutions are simple and cost-effective. On average, every $1 US dollar invested in water & sanitation provides an economic return of $3-34 US dollars.
• In just one day, women around the world spend more than 200 MILLION HOURS collecting water. This lost productivity is greater than the combined number of hours worked in a week by employees at Wal*Mart, United Parcel Service, McDonald’s, IBM, Target, and Kroger

It’s true that if we all conserved water better, didn’t eat meat, drink bottled water or buy a lot of manufactured goods, our own North American water future would be more secure, but it probably wouldn’t have much of an impact on the daily water realities of people in Africa, India and other places in water crisis. 

We have it in our power to improve the lives of those people dramatically, simply by donating a few dollars toward digging wells, or sanitizing the water that’s already available. Most of us will see that as a good thing to do, just on humanitarian principles.

But some of us might wonder, ”How can helping to improve water quality in Africa improve the quality of our lives in America?”

If you’re one of the “some”, I won’t waste your time explaining the laws of karma, the interconnectedness of all things, the golden rule, human rights, blah blah blah. But consider this:

Suppose lots of people in developing countries get wells in their villages and get on with living their lives instead of spending hours every day fetching a few gallons of bad water, then getting sick and dying? Suppose the adults could spend their time improving their lot in life, and were healthy enough to sustain those efforts, and the kids could go to school and get educated to do more useful things than carry water?

The economic condition of the people in that village and lots of other places would improve, right? Entrepreneurial Americans could surely turn that to their advantage in countless ways!

So whatever world view you embrace, it’s worth your while to help improve water quality in developing countries.

Donate Now

Blog Action Day 2010: Water, from Change.org. Unsafe drinking water & lack of sanitation kills more people every year than all forms of violence, including war

From Change.org: Access to clean water is not just a human rights issue. It’s an environmental issue. An animal welfare issue. A sustainability issue. Water is a global issue, and it affects all of us.

We’ve got just one week left until what’s shaping up to be the biggest event ever focused on clean water online. More than 2,200 bloggers from 113 different countries have already registered, with more and more joining every day.

Blog Action Day 2010 is such an important opportunity to raise awareness about the water issue. To get the conversation about water started, 5 facts that illustrate the severity of the global water problem:

1. Unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation kills more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Unclean drinking water can incubate some pretty scary diseases, like E. coli, salmonella, cholera and hepatitis A. Given that bouquet of bacteria, it’s no surprise that water, or rather lack thereof, causes 42,000 deaths each week.





2. More people have access to a cell phone than to a toilet. Today, 2.5 billion people lack access to toilets. This means that sewage spills into rivers and streams, contaminating drinking water and causing disease.
3. Every day, women and children in Africa walk a combined total of 109 million hours to get water. They do this while carrying cisterns weighing around 40 pounds when filled in order to gather water that, in many cases, is still polluted. Aside from putting a great deal of strain on their bodies, walking such long distances keeps children out of school and women away from other endeavors that can help improve the quality of life in their communities.
4. It takes 6.3 gallons of water to produce just one hamburger. That 6.3 gallons covers everything from watering the wheat for the bun and providing water for the cow to cooking the patty and baking the bun. And that’s just one meal! It would take over 184 billion gallons of water to make just one hamburger for every person in the United States.
5. The average American uses 159 gallons of water every day – more than 15 times the average person in the developing world. From showering and washing our hands to watering our lawns and washing our cars, Americans use a lot of water. To put things into perspective, the average five-minute shower will use about 10 gallons of water. Now imagine using that same amount to bathe, wash your clothes, cook your meals and quench your thirst.

While these facts may be grim, there is hope for real solutions as more and more people around the world are waking up to the clean water crisis. Earlier this year, the UN declared access to clean water a human right and groups like charity: water and Water.org continue to work tirelessly to bring water access to the developing world.

And now, on October 15th we all have a chance to help shed more light on water issues around the world. Take a moment to make sure to register your blog and grab an action widget, and get ready for an amazing day of blog activism.

Thanks again for all of you support,

Maria & the Blog Action Day team

Article excerpt from A Month Without Monsanto, published 8.26.10 by

YES! Magazine, via CommonDreams.org

Author April Dávila wondered what it would take to cut the GMO giant, Monsanto, and GMO foods out of her family’s life. She found that Monsanto was far more entrenched in our food supply than she’d ever realized.

“Unfortunately, with the exception of a few national brands (check out Annie’s, Inc. Massa Organics, and Lundberg Farms for a good start), there is no easy way to avoid Monsanto and genetically modified foods.”

Good First Steps

While it’s extremely difficult to entirely avoid Monsanto and gmo foods, there are some basic guidelines that anyone can use to minimize the GMOs in their lives.

1. Avoid processed foods & junk foods. In particular, eliminate High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) from your diet and be sure to read labels. HFCS appears in everything from sodas to wheat bread.
2. Consider going vegetarian, limiting your meat consumption, or buying grass-fed varieties. Over 60 percent of genetically modified corn goes to feed cattle on polluting concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in America. 
3. Buy organic dairy products. This is particularly important for the parents out there. The hormones in regular milk have been shown to bring on early puberty and are currently under investigation for contributing to a host of other health problems in our little ones.
4. Buy organic cotton when you can. Even though cotton makes up only 2.5 percent of the world’s crops, it is doused with 16 percent of the world’s pesticides. Cotton pesticides, most of which are listed as “extremely hazardous” by the World Health Organization, turn up regularly in water sources around the globe.

“What most amazed me during my month without Monsanto was the influence that one corporation had in my daily life–without me knowing anything about it. Once I started looking, Monsanto was everywhere. Once I started making the effort to avoid it, I found something else that surprised me: the confidence that comes from really knowing what I’m eating.” 

 Read More

Savvy Veg Comment: Going veg, eating local, having a garden, buying organic food, cooking from scratch, avoiding processed food, are all the ways that my family avoids GMOs in our diet. Knowing that almost all processed foods contain GMOs is strong motivation! Stronger motivation yet is knowing about the nature of GMOs – what they are, and their far-reaching potential for harm in our lives.

More Info on GMOs

EarthTalk®: From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazinea>Whole Foods, which was buying from local farmers and ranchers since it opened its first store in 1980 in Austin, Texas.

Dear EarthTalk Maria Fine, Somerville, MA

By going locavore, embracing “buy fresh buy local”, and eating locally sourced foods, we strengthen the bond between local farmers and our communities, stay connected to the seasons in our part of the world, promote crop diversity, and minimize the energy intensive, greenhouse-gas-emitting transportation of food from one part of the world to another.

Since local crops are usually harvested at their peak of freshness and typically delivered to stores within a day, customers can be sure they are getting the tastiest and most nutritious forms of the foods they like.

Luckily for consumers and the environment, local produce and other foods are now more widely available than they have been for decades. The first national grocery chain to prioritize local producers, perhaps not surprisingly, was natural foods retailer

Today each of the company’s 270-plus stores in 38 U.S. states prioritizes local sourcing—so much so that its customers take it for granted. Whole Foods’ relationships and distribution arrangements with local producers serve as models for the leading national grocery chains, many of which are beginning to source some produce locally when the season is right.

Some are taking more initiative than others. Perhaps most notable is Walmart. Back in 2008 the company committed to sourcing more local fruits and vegetables to keep produce prices down and provide affordable, fresh and healthy choices. Today more than 2,800 Walmart Supercenters and Neighborhood Markets across the country rely on a diverse network of small local growers to provide produce—making Sam Walton’s company the nation’s largest purchaser of local produce. During summer months, at least one-fifth of the produce available in Walmart stores is grown within the same state as the given store.

The company’s Heritage Agriculture program encourages farms within a day’s drive of one of its warehouses to grow crops that the company would otherwise have to source from so far away that freshness would be jeopardized and the fuel burned and greenhouse gases emitted in the process would be substantial. While the Heritage program currently accounts for only four to six percent of the company’s total domestic produce sales, the company is aiming for 20 percent within the next few years.

Other big grocery chains aren’t far behind. Safeway, one of the top three grocery chains in the country, prides themselves on local sourcing, getting nearly a third of its produce nationwide from local/regional growers. In heavy agricultural regions like California, the figure can be as high as 45 percent. The company has also made a big push into organic products, just like its biggest competitor, Walmart.

 If the chain grocer near you doesn’t do a good job stocking locally sourced food, there are alternatives. Community Supported Agriculture programs, in which consumers “subscribe” to the produce of a given farm by paying monthly dues that entitles them to a box of fresh produce every week, are more popular than ever, as are local farmers’ markets, food co-ops and independent natural foods markets.

To find local food near you, visit Local Harvest, which lists organic food sources by zip code and offers a wealth of resources for those looking to learn more about where their food comes from and how it is produced.

SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk®, c/o E – The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; Email: earthtalk – at - emagazine.com. E is a nonprofit publication. Subscribe to EarthTalk       Request a Free Trial Issue

More About Locavores and “Buy Fresh Buy Local”:

CSA Story: From Chemist to Organic Farmer

Eating in Season from the CSA Garden

Got Local Organic Milk?

Local or Organic, A False Choice

Local Organics in Western Montana