Research Paper: Pre-search.

My topic is about How New York laws affect local farming, therefore making it difficult for New Yorkers to become locavores.

1. The NYS Agriculture and Markets Law provides all information concerning laws from licensing slaughter houses, to community gardens, to agricultural environmental management.

2. Here's an interesting article of the New York Times about how hard it is for local farmers to send their animals to slaughterhouses because of the lack of local slaughterhouses.

3. Here's a little info about the history of the word "locavore"

4. The movie Locavore presents essential information on this movement and why is it important for people to become a locavore.

5. How are New York City natives affected by the lack of local farms?

6. What can be done to establish more local markets in New York City areas?

New perspective

Dear Family,

Oftentimes we like to get together and share a good time with each other, mostly on the table on the presence of a good meal. Although there are quite a big variety of foods, the majority of what we consume isn’t prepared the right way, the healthy way. Some of the things that can be taken into account are that many of our family members suffer from diabetes and high cholesterol therefore if we cook less salt, add olive oil instead of vegetable oil and cook with more fresh vegetables, not only are we eating healthy, we are consuming things that can reduce our genetic diseases. Sharing with the new generation of how meals can be made healthier can introduce them to a healthier lifestyle in the future.

How to go about freshly cooking your meals is very easy, although a little time consuming. Some pointers that you can follow are either growing your own fruits and vegetables on your back yard. Little things like tomatoes, green peas, and small fruits can save you money as well as assert you of a fresh meal. Also going apple picking can be an easy method of getting fresh apples. There are also many fruit and vegetable stands in the city that the non working women can go and pick out a few things. The one thing that all of the women in our family know how to do is cook with lots of vegetable oil, minimizing the amount the oil or changing to cooking with olive oil can save money as well as preserve our health.

Bettering our health is one key that we need to take into our concern when it comes to cooking. One thing that can also help is changing the variety of food we eat. Having three types of meat in one day is something that is not necessary to do. One type of meat per get together is more than enough. Also adding more types of salads can introduce the family to a healthy way of eating. Lessening or eliminating soda from the drinking menu and adding homemade juices from all different types of fruits can introduce people to natural sugars and flavors that not only taste good, but also it’s good for them.

Back when the women of our family used to live in the Dominican Republic, the resources that were used to make a meal were from scratch. Things like green vegetables and fruits were picked from country stands and meat and dairy were collected from family farms. It is not the same as going into the supermarket and easily grabbing essential things but at least the things that were from the country farms were far fresher and had no chemicals to preserve them. When the kids were put to take out the peas from the shells, and cleaning fruits and vegetables that taught us how to freshly pick and clean the things we consume. Now we don’t include the children in preparing meals because they already come prepared. This would affect them in the future because they won’t gain interest in cooking.

Making all these changes does take time but with dedication it can be done. Looking out for each other’s health is crucial because as the years passes by the amount of people in our family with diabetes and cholesterol are increasing. We do want to be around each other for a long time, so starting with a healthier family gathering is key to leading a healthier life since we do influence each other, especially when it comes to cooking.