How to Eat Local and Save Time

Visit the NH Eats Local website at www.nheatlocal.org to discover how you can make local food a delicious habit. #NHEatsLocal

August is "New Hampshire Eat Local Month," (not to be confused with "Eat Locals"). It's a 31-day occasion worth observing. When you purchase local food the benefits ripple through the community, helping the farms and businesses that support them.

When you buy raw milk, yogurt, or cheese from Huckin's Farm (New Hampton), you'll enjoy easily digestible dairy high in protein and butterfat. You'll have delicious, beneficial A2 dairy products, and owner Maddy Huckins will have the resources to buy non-GMO feed for her Jersey and Guernsey cows. Buy maple syrup or candy from Windswept Farm in Loudon as an alternative to highly-processed sugar and corn syrup, and you'll give owners Larry and Melissa Moore a reason to tap their trees. Buy meat from Miles Smith Farm, and you will help us pay Howard Pearl and Bob McWhinney for hay, Dr. Peck for doctoring our herd, and Hilltop Feeds (Loudon) for providing chicken feed. You'll also support Brookside Pizza in Loudon, where we get delicious pizza, and Glenn's Auto Service in Belmont, where we fix our trucks. Money spent here stays here, circulating and recirculating. 

Buying local food keeps New Hampshire fields mowed, cows fed, and sap processed. It's a community thing. Buying from your local farmer helps the entire community and preserves the rural character of our state. What happens when a farm isn't financially viable? Development.

Local farms also provide food security when food produced from "away" disappears. Remember when the pandemic hit and food trucked in from the Midwest was gone from grocery store shelves? Local farms filled the gap. We’re still here, but now that the supermarkets are restocked, will consumers return to old habits? If you shop locally one day a week, you'll get delicious food and help a local farm or two survive. We are in this together; we need you as much as you need us.

If you already buy locally raised food, you are a local-farm hero. Your taste buds are already addicted to deliciousness of raw milk, the tangy sweetness of maple lemonade, the freshness of local eggs, and the tenderness of grass-fed steak. Thank you for supporting local farmers.