Finding the Best, Local Food Near You Just Got Easier | Environment | AlterNet

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As Vandana Shiva writes in her newest book, Soil Not Oil, "The era of cheap food and cheap oil is over." Add to this changing precipitation patterns, melting glaciers and increasing drought from climate change, and we have a recipe for disaster.

Michael Pollan has warned the next incoming U.S president, "What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact -- so easy to overlook these past few years -- that the health of a nation's food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention."

While Barack Obama may have his hands full, the rest of us need to be thinking about our plates. Interestingly, one of the ways to start doing this would be to stay right where you are -- in front of your computer, that is. While technology may not always have been the best companion to agriculture (think biotech), the Internet has emerged as an incredible tool for planning the future of food. A Web site called the Eat Well Guide is hoping to help people make good decisions about what they eat and how, with a few clicks of the mouse.

As Bill McKibben points out, "It is undeniably odd, and lovely, that one of the most important parts of our food system -- a little behind rain and sun and seed, but not so much -- are the new digital tools that allow us to bypass the big advertisers, the mega-chains, the junk peddlers and instead find the myriad other people growing, processing, cooking and eating actually delicious food."

The site is for people interested in food that is "good, clean and fair." As the Web site describes, it's "a free online directory of thousands of family farms, ...

As Vandana Shiva writes in her newest book, Soil Not Oil, "The era of cheap food and cheap oil is over." Add to this changing precipitation patterns, melting glaciers and increasing drought from climate change, and we have a recipe for disaster.

Michael Pollan has warned the next incoming U.S president, "What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact -- so easy to overlook these past few years -- that the health of a nation's food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention."

While Barack Obama may have his hands full, the rest of us need to be thinking about our plates. Interestingly, one of the ways to start doing this would be to stay right where you are -- in front of your computer, that is. While technology may not always have been the best companion to agriculture (think biotech), the Internet has emerged as an incredible tool for planning the future of food. A Web site called the Eat Well Guide is hoping to help people make good decisions about what they eat and how, with a few clicks of the mouse.

As Bill McKibben points out, "It is undeniably odd, and lovely, that one of the most important parts of our food system -- a little behind rain and sun and seed, but not so much -- are the new digital tools that allow us to bypass the big advertisers, the mega-chains, the junk peddlers and instead find the myriad other people growing, processing, cooking and eating actually delicious food."

The site is for people interested in food that is "good, clean and fair." As the Web site describes, it's "a free online directory of thousands of family farms, ...

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http://www.alternet.org/environment/107134/finding_the_best%2C_local_food_near_you_just_got_easier/

http://www.alternet.org/environment/107134/finding_the_best%2C_local_food_near_you_just_got_easier/