We all have to eat, but how we access food can vary Maybe your usual routine is a trip to the grocery store or a farmers market. Maybe you grow some of your own food. Or maybe you use resources like food banks or delivery services.
We wanted to know what access to food looks like in your community; if it's enough, or if there's still a need.
So, July's Big Question was: ‘How do you access your food?’
Here’s what some of you said:
Abby - Manchester, NH: I usually go to the grocery store. I mean, I'm pretty close by to different options. We go to Market Basket. Sometimes we do Walmart pickup, things like that. So, it's pretty easy for me to access food. Expensive, yes, but I still have access to it.
Elizabeth - Portsmouth, NH: My frustrated experience is that when the growing season for the summer market is over, all we're left with is the produce and our grocery stores, which is either dull and tired or unripe or almost rotting. That is my general experience of the offerings, both organic and non-organic, in local grocery stores. And that's incredibly frustrating because that does not represent strong nutritional value. And simultaneously, it also represents a pretty significant carbon footprint. So, I feel as though if people could somehow explore this idea of sunken greenhouses scattered all over the state, we could have more variety than we've ever had before. It would be fresh. It would be local. It would avoid the necessity of gallons, and gallons and gallons of pesticides. It would be stable in terms of supply chain issues. It would really be a beautiful thing for the state of New Hampshire.
Karen Emmons - Allenstown, NH: I access my food in three ways: I go to a grocery store, I go to vegetable stands, and I grow some in my garden. I wish I could be exclusive to the farm stands and my garden, but there's certain things… you can't get there, the packaged stuff, which I try to minimize but you can't help with the plastic and all that stuff. So, if I could, I would be exclusive [to] garden and fruit and vegetable stands, but it’s not possible.
Steven - Nashua, NH: I access my food through Instacart. Unfortunately, I'm homebound and I lost my license to drive, so I need someone to deliver the groceries to my door. So I do Instacart. It's expensive, but they do deliver it to my door. I wish I could drive, you know? And my friends, everyone's busy with their lives, so I can't impose on them. So, I wish I could have the ability to drive and get my groceries myself.
Gary - Concord, NH: My family and I access our food mostly through farmers, farmers markets and just friends that farm. Obviously, we can get everything from the grocery store because we eat a pretty high fruit diet. So we travel to Bedford to, like, Trader Joe's Whole Foods, to access most of our food. But we also get a lot of our stuff locally to support local farmers to hopefully bring back that portion of life. Just building connections with people and me and my family and just going to their farms and just meeting them and seeing how they grow their vegetables and just being completely like minded and just passionate about it has built strong connections. So meeting the farmers, meeting their families, seeing how hard they work and seeing their processes, how they grow and how nutrient-dense their foods are is pretty incredible.
Thank you to everyone who submitted an answer to this month’s Big Question. Click here to learn more about how to send us your answer to next month's question.
