Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally

I am currently reading the book 'Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally' I am enjoying the book thoroughly. I just came across a quote that makes a good argument for eating locally (outside of that fact of having a smaller footprint), when the author is talking to a registered dietician and spokesperson for the American Dietetics: "Food begins to lose nutrition as soon as it is harvested. Fruit and vegetables that travel shorter distances are therefore likely to be closer to a maximum of nutrition. Nowadays, we know a lot more about the naturally occurring substances in produce. It's not just the vitamins and minerals, but all these phytochemicals and really powerful disease-fighting substances, and we do know that when a food never really reaches its peak ripeness, the levels of these substances never get as high." pg. 228


The nutritionist recommends gathering fresh foods at their peak, freeze or can the surplus, and consume them within six months. We as a family have started trying to eat this way as much as we reasonably can for about a year now, although no where as near as strict as the authors of the book. But it is not always easy, the convenience is sometimes hard to resist, and it has become routine and habit for many, but we have to think about the future, is it really more convenient when our health may be on the line?