Comments by Howie McMillan, a verified Nature Delivered customer
Eating local is good for you, your community, and the environment. Read on to learn why sourcing more of your food from North Okanagan/Shuswap farmers is so important and how one excellent local food provider called Nature Delivered (www.naturedelivered.ca) can help you enjoy all the benefits of eating local.
Local food (and the closer to your home, the better!) is good for you and your family because its more nutritious. Mainly because its fresher, especially when in season. But even off-season, local food is better simply because most of it is whole (non-processed).
Local food is good for your community because its grown, harvested, washed (prepped) and delivered by your neighbours and other members of your community. When you purchase this food all of your dollars stay in your community. And, through the miracle of what’s called a multiplier effect, those dollars circulate through your community many times as the farmer purchases various inputs and other goods and services in the community. For many of you, your very job or your business depends on local spending just like this.
Local food is good for our environment. Locally grown food drastically reduces food miles (a calculation of how far your food travels from field to fork – in Canada, roughly 2,000 miles for most supermarket items). Locally grown, whole foods also consume significantly less energy and emit far fewer harmful by-products in their simplified production process.
Local food is good for you in one other important, but often overlooked way – it’s more nourishing. What I’m talking about here is beyond nutrition. It stems from the emotional wellbeing associated with the ‘know your farmer’ mantra. We are better nourished, physically and mentally, when we know where our food comes from and who grew it. Local food gives us that wellbeing.
So, hopefully, my comments have you wondering how you can bring more local food into your kitchen. Growing some or more of your own food is a start and, even if it’s only some cherry tomatoes or strawberries in a container on your deck, it’s good for you and hyper-local! Visiting farmer’s markets, farmstands, and farmgate stores seasonally is another great option. Supporting locally-owned independent grocery stores who typically feature a significant selection of local food also helps.
Another great option is Nature Delivered. Emily, Owen, and their great crew are centrally located in Grindrod and serve both the North Okanagan and Shuswap regions. Much of the great selection of food they offer is grown on their own farm, Shuswap Organics. From there they source numerous produce and pantry items from other farms in our area and, at times, from other areas of B.C. and beyond. The key being that they strongly prioritize food from as close to home as possible.
And, as the name implies, they deliver – every week, year-round! At present they deliver from Enderby to Vernon (including Predator Ridge and Coldstream), the UBCO campus, and from Grindrod to Salmon Arm. They also offer free pickup spots in Enderby, Vernon, and Salmon Arm if you're outside of their home delivery area, or if pickup works better for you than home delivery.
As mentioned, they offer a great selection of local food, but just as important, they offer you great choices for optimizing your shopping experience. You can choose from three different sizes of “Farmer’s Choice Boxes” and how frequently you’d like one. Beyond that, you can even request substitutions for items you can’t use (picky eaters, allergies, etc.). Prefer to select your own items? No problem! Their easy-to-use online store allows you to select whatever you want in whatever quantities work best for you.
Personally, we started with the “Boxes”, which were great, but soon found selecting our own items each week worked better for our somewhat unorthodox household. Now we have the convenience of online pre-ordering, which helps with meal planning, and can easily fill in any gaps at Butcher Boys (a family-owned, independent grocery store).
In summary, Nature Delivered has become a core provider of local, nutritious and nourishing food that conveniently fulfils our objective to Eat Local!
I strongly encourage you to check out this great local food service at www.naturedelivered.ca.