Yes, We Have No Bananas

I love this kind of marketing: turning a weakness into a strength. You can't get the variety at the farmers' market that you find at the supermarket, but that's actually a good thing because most of those supermarket items are picked too early, stored too long, and shipped too far.

There's been a lot of talk lately about the issue of food miles, or the distance our food travels to get to our tables. But that's not the only reason it's important to eat locally. Locally grown food is more likely to be produced by independent growers rather than monster corporations.

People who live and work independently tend to also think independently. It's no accident that the earliest successful democracy--ancient Greece--was an agricultural society built on a system of small, independently owned farms.

At the other end of the spectrum there's the "banana republic," which calls to mind everything from petty tyrants to frequent revolutions to an impoverished population growing a single variety of food to enrich shareholders of foreign corporations.

Yes, we have no bananas...