Food security

Why You Should Want to Know Who’s Making Your Food and How

If you want to eat well, it pays to make friends with a farmer. Supermarket stickers can be misleading, and while the label “organic” can be a sign of quality, it’s no guarantee.

Peter Martens, an organic grain farmer in upstate New York, says he would choose no-label produce grown by someone he knew over vegetables labeled “organic” at a store. One reason: Food grown under organic guidelines may have traveled for weeks before landing on your plate.

“I would personally buy local before I bought organic from China,” says Martens, who helps run Lakeview Organic Grain in Penn Yan, N.Y. “Knowing where it came from is more important than just having a stamp on it.”