For many years, I would drive to my small-town grocery store and buy food for my family and myself. I had no idea I was utterly naïve to the atrocities and perils of industrial agriculture. I couldn’t understand what was so terrible with an enterprise that supplied our nation with cheap, inexpensive food right in the aisles of our local grocery stores at the time. The burgeoning local food movement, on the other hand, has drastically altered my perception of who has our back when it comes to supplying us with nutritious, sustainable food. I’ll never forget the first time I read Michael Pollan’s book “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.” It was like my eyes and mind were awoken to a world I never knew existed, and that world was right outside in the roots of the earth around me. For years, we have been eating food that has been stripped of its essential nutrients and packed in wrappers and boxes. This meal not only makes us unhealthy, but it also makes us ill. It would be wonderful to assume that our government would shield us from such calamity, but due to the USDA, industrial agriculture is one hugely protected colossus. Through self-study and research, I’ve discovered that eating locally not only improves access to healthy, affordable greens and meats, but it also helps reduce the cost of food transportation, boosts our local economies, reduces international shipping costs, and lowers the cost of packaging and processing industrial food. Consider these three areas for obtaining local vegetables and meats if you want to go more local. Farmers…