This is a NY Times article on how eating locally is for your health! 

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/boosting-health-with-local-food/

Saturday at the Farmer's Market

This afternoon I had the opportunity to check the Blacksburg farmer's market. I bought some delicious apples, a couple pumpkins, tomatoes, green beans (snaps to the southerners), and some grass-finished ground beef. I also had the pleasure of talking to a few of the farmers. Phil Mosser, the co-owner of Shadowchase farm, spoke at great length about the numerous benefits of local food, grain-finished beef, and the bureaucratic obstacles that local farmers have to face.

Perhaps he would be willing to give us a tour. Debating local foods has one distinct advantage in that we can actually get testimony from local farmers. We should all try our best to seek out local farmers and local food consumers. Ask them a question like: "Why grow/buy local food as opposed to industrial?"

Here is the link to Shadowchase Farms. He has a bit of info about his farm and grass-finished beef on there, and it may be worthwhile to check it out.

----Shadowchase Farm----

Michael Pollan - No Bar Code

Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food, talks about his experience on Polyface farm.
There are some nice quotes from Joel Salatin as well as many of his customers. It gives a good point of view from the everyday person who wants healthy food.

----An evangelical Virginia farmer says a revolution against industrial agriculture is just down the road----

Grass-finished Beef is the Healthy Choice - Academic Research

This is a really interesting article about the health aspects of beef grown on grass and legumes. The USDA, and three universities (including VT) were involved.

----Cows' grass and legume diet creates low-fat beef----

Hey!

I just wanted to go ahead and send you guys a few things I found. As far as I can tell, we need to turn in a paper with all of our group info and the tentative outline in class next Tuesday. So I think we need to each come up with what we think are the most important arguments and maybe go through them tomorrow and decide which ones we want to present. 

-This is an article from Time magazine about how "local is the new organic" which I think is a really interesting idea. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1595245,00.html

This is another really good website called Eat Local Challenge, here are the ten reason they give for eating local. http://www.lifebeginsat30.com/elc/2006/04/10_reasons_to_e.html

Administration Seeks to Restrict Antibiotics in Livestock

The Obama administration wants to "ban many routine uses of antibiotics in farm animals" due to concerns over antibiotic resistant bacteria. The move has support from the American Medical Association as well as the Union for Concerned Scientists, but agribusiness lobbyists will be fighting against it tooth and nail. I hope this doesn't lead to more open house shenanigans...

First Post!

Hey! It's our first post on the Buy Local, Live Local Blog. Hopefully there will be many more to come.