Local food options available in Creston

By: Lance Kraai

According to most estimates the average fruit or vegetable purchased in the US travels 1,500 miles before arriving on your plate. To put that in perspective, 1,500 miles from your quaint Creston neighborhood home will put you on the Texas/Mexico border, Salt Lake City, Utah, or perhaps—most appealing of all this time of year–Miami, Florida.

So why does this matter? Well for a lot of reasons. First, when food travels it uses carbon-emitting fuel. Second, when food travels it goes bad. For all the food grown for US consumption, 40% goes to waste. This is compounded by the fact that only 3% of our food is composted, which means a lot of food ends up in our landfills where it breaks down without oxygen-releasing methane. 

Local food is also healthier. Food picked to travel well, is picked early. So those tomatoes from Miami, Florida are picked firm and green, before they are at their nutritional best.

Further, after being picked the tomatoes immediately start shedding nutritional value. In other words, there is a reason why a cherry tomato plucked right from the vine tastes incredible. Our tastes buds are aware that something beautiful is happening in that perfectly ripe, super fresh explosion of juice.

Thankfully Creston has some fantastic local food options:

• To buy CSA shares or fresh produce from a farm stand, check out New City Urban Farm, which grows all of its food on a two-acre field right in the neighborhood. For more information contact Lance Kraai. See below for contact information.
• To grow your own food at a community garden, check out the Creston Community Gardens on Facebook or email Andrea Hensen at [email protected].
• To shop for Michigan grown produce, check out Kingma’s Market, which often has a good local food selection. Some neighborhood restaurants like Graydon’s Crossing and Red Jet Cafe offer local food options on their menus as well.