The Covid19 situation has me thinking about various forms of preparedness. But first, I’d like to take a minute to acknowledge those that have recently faced serious illness, lost loved ones, or have experienced serious loss from economic shut down. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all of you.
Who knows what the future holds and how it will affect us as individuals and as a community? It’s wise to prepare for crisis in whatever ways we can. I’m thinking about emergency preparedness in general and plan to double check our essential supplies so that in future crisis I won’t be caught off-guard and have to scramble to find them. But also, I’m thinking about how to immerse our family in a healthy lifestyle to create a good foundation to withstand and prepare us for whatever comes our way!
Eating healthy is a paramount strategy to fighting off sickness and lifestyle diseases. We know there are some aspects of health that we can’t control. But those will likely not hit us as hard if we are proactive in what we can control! Let’s start with our mindset! We can take charge of our physical, emotional and spiritual health and be mindful of our stress levels and attitudes! We can control the amounts of sugar, alcohol, and exercise we partake in. We can neglect or nurture our body with the nutrition it needs to be its best. We have choices and those choices have impacts negative or positive.
Many contemplate living a healthy lifestyle but due to various reasons just don’t take the steps to make it happen. It’s easy to put off nutritious eating habits, but radical change becomes motivating when faced with serious health issues. It’s better to be proactive and not wait until faced with a health crisis to embrace healthy habits.
Which gets me thinking about our food security and community preparedness. With the recent health crisis, we were reminded of how fragile our food system is. When this country went into lockdown mode, I was on the phone sourcing produce, changing menus daily, looking for values and variety to help feed the families we serve. Many items were difficult to source for several weeks. Thankfully, with our long-standing relationships in the produce industry, we were given favor and I think our customers barely noticed! There were a few items people had to go without for a short bit, but it worked out to be a minor inconvenience.
Just like a personal health scare can be a wakeup call, this felt like a wakeup call to prioritize and invest in local food security. Let’s be proactive, not reactive. If sourced food, from distant places, becomes scarce, for any unfathomable reason, having access to local food is critical! We need to have local farmland and farmers available to grow extra food for our own community. Our season in the PNW is limited due to the weather and cooler climate, so even more resources would need to be available to grow enough to store and use throughout the colder seasons! Local infrastructure must be viable and in place for there to be true food security.
We are thankful for each of you and your support as we continue our mission to grow, source and deliver quality organically grown fruit and vegetables and be a voice for local farmland preservation.
The more local families that eat locally grown food, the stronger our local farm community will be. . . and please remember to support ALL local businesses!
-Tristan