Book Spotlights Farmers’ Markets

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Eat Local by Jasia Steinmetz coutesy New World Publishing

AUBURN, California — Consumers, grocers and restaurateurs at all levels of our nation’s culinary food chain are heading to farmers’ markets, pick-your-own organic food farms, and otherwise utilizing community supported agriculture resources in droves. This awareness spotlights that high value, locally farmed food is good for our health, communities, local farmers and farmland; is economical (often less expensive than the grocery store), convenient, and fun to source; and that it tastes great. For these reasons and more, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point food and nutrition professor and registered dietitian Jasia Steinmetz champions the local foods movement in her new book, “Eat Local: Simples Steps to Enjoy Real, Healthy & Affordable Food,” a simple, step-by-step roadmap for improving diet and nutrition with local, sustainable and organic food choices.

With the extraordinary amount of interest in local foods comes an inevitable array of questions and even concerns amid a marketplace hungry for information and insight. Among other tasty tidbits, Steinmetz writes and talks about timely and compelling “local food” topics, including, but not limited to, the following:

● Economics: budget savvy local food shopping tips that save money

● Convenience: How purchasing local foods can be far more convenient than you think

● Children’s Health: How locally grown foods can be integral in the fight against childhood obesity, while also better promoting family traditions

● 10 ways local foods promote health and wellness

● Key benefits of local foods – health, economic, environmental, and otherwise

● Myth-busting – debunking concerns and challenges regarding sourcing, procuring and preparing local foods

● Step-by-step guidelines for finding and using local foods

● Seasonal local food eating strategies

● Local food cooking & preparation tips

● Menu transformations: top tips for making holiday and other family dinners a bounty of fresh, healthy foods with local, sustainable food choices

● The why's and how's of finding, purchasing, preserving and using local foods grown near your community

● Ways to change and improve our “runaway food system” for future generations, such as supporting school gardens or farm-to-school programs and hunger projects, farmland protection, etc.