You don't need to be a scientist to figure out that fresh food tastes better. There's just no comparison between the robust flavor of a hand-picked cherry tomato, still warm from the sun, and the bland taste of a tomato grabbed from the stark, fluorescent aisle of a grocery store.
After all, when a plant comes from your backyard, as opposed to an industrial farm many miles away, the difference is evident in both taste and nutritional quality.
As Michael Pollan explains in The Omnivore's Dilemma, an illuminating looking at our troubled food system, the average fruit or vegetable on an American’s plate travels roughly 1,500 miles to get there, and is "frequently better traveled and more worldly than its eater."
All of those miles traveled and hours spent in transit - packed away in 18-wheeler trucks, on trains, or even in boats or airplanes – inevitably affects the quality of food, not just in terms of its taste, but in its nutritional composition, too.
For example, a study conducted by Penn State showed that spinach loses much of it important nutrients, like folate, a vitamin B compound, and cartenoids, an important nutrient for eye health, after just eight days. Even if grocery store spinach looks fresh on the outside, it can still be lacking in the important vitamins and minerals that contribute to its healthful qualities. It's not just the tick of time that has an effect on conventional, store-bought produce, but the type of growing methods, too.
A two-year study comparing the nutritional quality and taste of organic versus conventional strawberries concluded that the organic variety had a longer shelf life and a far greater nutritional value than their non-organic counterparts.
Since the produce grown in our garden beds is one-hundred-percent organic and one-hundred-percent hyperlocal, it is up to thirty-eight percent more nutrient dense than the fruits and vegetable found in supermarkets.
As part of our education program in Beverly Schools, Green City Growers recently put together a video about just how far most fruits and vegetables travel before they reach your plate, and how this can have detrimental effects on the environment, the nutritional quality, and taste of our food.
If you’re curious to learn more, you can watch the video here:
