Saturday, April 28, 2007

Local Foods

On Local foods from the Worldwatch Institute. Local Foods are becoming increasingly popular throughout the world. But not in the Arab World. Please if you live in Lebanon support local foods. Make sure you buy local. There are many reaons for that. Food vendors should clarify the origin of the food we purchase so that we can have the choice to support local farmers. There are a few places where you are sure to find local foods: Souk et Tayyeb (www.soukeltayeb.com) where small, local producers display their food every Saturday morning (Saifi), Sunday morning (Jbeil) and Tuesday afternoon (Dunes complex, verdun). You can also find local organic food from Healthy basket, lebanon's only Community Supported Agriculture program (www.healthybasket.org)

What is the greatest benefit of joining the local food movement?
Enjoying fresher and tastier food
Supporting your local economy
Limiting the effects of transportation costs on the environment and your wallet
Avoiding the risk of large-scale food contamination
Ensuring animal welfare

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rami, Interesting blog.

Your link to healthybasket is incorrect and the one for soukeltayyeb will not connect.The l is missing in healthybasket.

Maybe you can answer a few questions for me. Is there a fair trade organization for farmers in Lebanon? What if any producer coperatives are active in the agricultureal sector in Lebanon?

Issam

Rami Zurayk said...

Hello Issam. I have made the corrections, thanks for pointing them out. There are no operating FT organizations in Lebanon, and there is no local FT certification yet. There are many active cooperatives, but not as many as there should be, and none has a FT label. Let me know how I can help.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Rami,

I may seek your help in the future on these topics.

Issam