Captain Richard Cook, founder of The Local Catch, saw a need for local seafood distribution and sought to fill it by providing a way to sell his catch to buyers in nearby states, close to where he caught it in the first place. The Local Catch provides a market for other Rhode Island fisherman as well, so they are trailblazing a whole new take on seafood

Paleo is a diet centered around health and fitness, but increasingly its followers are looking to local sources for their grassfed meats and nutritional vegetables. This is an important opportunity for the local food movement.

The food that a region grows often has a big influence on the cuisine of that region, so it’s no surprise that shrimp and gumbo are popular along the Gulf Coast, and Key Lime Pie …

If you’ve ever felt that tug in your heart to farm, you know the impulse cannot be denied. You might end up in something else, but no matter what you’ll always find yourself wistfully dreaming of rows of summer vegetables, rich, loamy soil, the red splash of ripe tomatoes, and the taste that makes supermarket ‘vegetables’ unworthy of the name.

I’ve always found that eggs are the hardest thing to get locally. The farmers markets are always sold out unless I arrive right at opening, and they are ridiculously expensive unless I find a neighbor who raises hens. Everyone wants eggs, it seems, putting them in really high demand. Of course, whenever something is hard to get from someone else, my immediate response is to figure out how I can make it myself (or get a hen to make it for me).

If you live in Fairfield County Connecticut, Greater Boston and near Stratton & Okemo Mountains in Vermont, you’re in luck, because Graze will deliver artisanal, sustainable Vermont meats and dairy right to your doorstep, and you can order them whenever it is most convenient for you. They’ll even send you wholesome, prepared meals to save you the trouble of cooking. And they’ll do it all without burning a hole in your wallet.

Of all the animals in the world, certainly we have the widest selection of possible foods; we can eat meat, vegetables, grains, legumes, dairy, and even industrial chemicals (apparently). And yet while a squirrel can look at an acorn and know instinctively that it is good to eat, we have to consider our food options. With so much variety, the only way we know what is good to eat and what isn’t is through trial and error, cultural norms, and our sense of taste and smell.

This is the omnivore’s dilemma, and it forms the basis for the book by Michael Pollan, which explores how we modern humans produce, acquire, and prepare our food.

Have you heard of Katie Stagliano? When she was in the third grade, she put some cabbage seeds into the ground, and the cabbage that grew ended up being about forty pounds. Not wanting it to go to waste, she donated it to local soup kitchens, where it fed hundreds of people. Since then, she has been growing fresh vegetables to donate to local food drives, homeless shelters, and soup kitchens. How’s that for locavore activism?

every time I read about the state of the American food system, my heart breaks all over again. Choosing to opt out seems like a constant uphill battle, which is stupid because all I want is to eat vegetables grown in healthy soil and animals that didn’t spend their whole lives suffering. That doesn’t seem like such a crazy wish!

The rapid growth in the number of farmers markets across the country means that there is increasing opportunity to share for those, like my dad, with delicious family recipes. With the help of authors like Detra Denay Davis, many of them are now turning their passion into a viable and successful business enterprise, enabling them to share what they love with their communities.