If you’ve got a question that we aren’t answering here, you could write to us and ask.

What is a localvore?

Depends on who you ask. We think it’s a person who tries to buy some of what they eat outside mainstream food production because they’ve recognized there are health, environmental, economic and animal cruelty issues associated with most Grocery Store Food. A localvore is not someone who only eats food grown 100 miles or less from where they live. Nor is a localvore a boring, rich, urban hippie-type.

I hear it’s expensive to be a localvore. Is this true?

Sadly, it’s expensive just to be alive, especially in Boston. What we’re finding is that the higher prices we’ve been paying for good local food ($8/lb for ground beef, for example, or $3 dozen for eggs/$400 for a weekly share of fruits+veggies from a CSA) is now becoming the reality for a lot of food coming out of the factory farms. We probably do spend a little more on some things, but we often buy in bulk (a $35 bag of potatoes that lasted through the winter) and we cook a lot from scratch. This is often cheaper than buying prepacked things, so it’s kind of a wash.

How do I know this stuff is safe, just coming off of some kooky, backwoods farm?

We understand your concern, but it’s just not like that. Local dairy farms (including raw milk dairy farms) are inspected and tested regularly by government officials, just like any other farm in the country. Any local meat that you, a consumer, can get your hands on has been slaughtered and packaged in a government approved slaughterhouse. If it’s food and you’re buying it in a shoppe or at a farmer’s market, it’s subject to the same rules and regulations as anything you could find in a Major Grocery Store.

Everyone eats food from a grocery store, and we’re all fine. What’s the problem?

Apart from us having the highest rates of heart disease, diabetes and being the fattest people on the planet, I guess that’s true — some people make it through unscathed. Sort of depends on how you define unscathed. Since the 1920s, scientists have been coming up with proof that preservatives, chemicals fertilizers and other artificial agents that make Big Food so big are actually quite bad for us (and our unborn children, ladies). Also, before the industrial revolution, this was the way people ate for, oh, several thousand years or so.

Where do I start? There’s no way I can just become a localvore.

This is *the* most frequently asked questions. Start with one thing that’s easy to commit to or important to you somehow. If one of the stores we’ve listed is nearby, go there and buy their milk and cheeses. Or join one of the CSAs and be a localvore every week for most of the year (it works out to about $20 per week). Or take your sweetheart to the farmer’s market and have her pick out stuff for dinner, then take it home and make something together.

For more information, do look at our Resources.