So, why should you start a Victory Garden?
It is more important now than ever to know where your food comes from and how it was grown. In addition to this, locally produced food is critical for increasing food security and reducing consumption of fossil fuels. By increasing locally produced food, food accessibility also improves, as well as the health of the people in the community.
Here are my top 6 reasons in detail:
Number 1: Food Security
Community gardens improve food security and accessibility by localizing the source. As a result of increased access to affordable nutrient-dense foods, people develop better due to nutritional needs being met. People are healthier and both mentally and emotionally more stable.
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Number 2: Food Deserts
Food deserts are geographic areas where residents’ access to affordable, healthy food options, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, is restricted or nonexistent due to the absence of grocery stores within convenient traveling distance.
According to a report prepared for Congress by the Economic Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture, about 2.3 million people (or 2.2 percent of all US households) live more than one mile away from a supermarket and do not own a car.
In urban areas, access to public transportation may help residents overcome the difficulties posed by distance, but economic forces have driven grocery stores out of many cities in recent years, making them so few and far between that an individual’s food shopping trip may require taking several buses or trains.
In suburban and rural areas, public transportation is either very limited or unavailable, with supermarkets often many miles away from people’s homes.
People’s choices about what to eat are severely limited by the options available to them and what they can afford—and many food deserts contain an overabundance of fast food chains and convenience stores selling highly processed, nutrient deficient “foods”.
Number 3: Nutrition
Community gardens supply a source of local and fresh, nutrient dense foods that may not otherwise be available within miles.
These projects can also provide affordable solutions to healthy food and serve as preventative health solutions to conditions that people may otherwise have suffered from.
We see conditions that simultaneously involve excess and deficiency. Excessive consumption of empty calories creates a vicious cycle as our bodies crave the nutrition that prompts continuous eating in search of scarce supplies. It is difficult to overeat nutrient-dense foods, as our systems are satisfied quickly with adequate amounts of nutrients in addition to energy provided by the calories.
Food quality has been decreasing over the last several decades, adding nutrient security threats to our food security threats. Nutrient levels have dropped to all-time lows.
Since 1940, with the mechanization of farming, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides, and GMO’s/glyphosate, mineral content of food has plummeted.
As a result, human health has suffered. We see so many degenerative diseases becoming more common in relation to the decrease in the mineral content of food. People are not getting the appropriate amounts of critical elements/minerals needed to build enzymes, which are needed to build healthy DNA, which causes gaps called genetic markers, which are the pre-disease states that set people up for poor health. This is why community-based projects are so important to the overall health of the community. With proper soil care, plant care, ecosystem care, and people care, the quality of health is improved.