Shoppers at the farmers market on a cold February afternoon in New York City's Union Square. (Photo by Micki Steele/CNS)

New Yorker Keith Chappelle, an actor who lives with his girlfriend in Harlem, is shopping at the farmers market in Manhattan’s Union Square on a cold February afternoon, inspecting fresh vegetables with one hand and carrying a Whole Foods reusable bag in the other. He has spent the last year revamping his diet and the way he shops for food. His “journey,” as he calls it, from the “industrial food chain” to local and seasonal food hasn’t been easy.

Chappelle is a locavore, a term that was added to the New American Oxford Dictionary in 2007 to describe food buyers, sellers and growers of locally farmed produce and livestock.

He says his monthly grocery bill of $400 goes to local food 90 percent of the time now, with Whole Foods as a backup. And although he has adjusted to eating only what’s available locally and seasonally, it can be more expensive. He spent $3 for a pound and a half of turkey thighs at the farmers market, which would have cost him about 50 cents less at his neighborhood grocer. But he’s determined.

“I won’t eat tomatoes in winter,” he said. “If you eat a tomato at the farmers market, it’s probably been grown in a greenhouse – makes it a little more expensive – the flavor is almost there, but I don’t eat it – but when spring comes, they’ll be plentiful, they’ll be cheaper, and they’ll be more flavorful and I look forward to it.”

Chappelle is learning to create savory meals with seasonal foods, especially root vegetables. Today he’s planning a three-course dinner for friends with meat and produce from the farmers market and “odds and ends” from Whole Foods: carrot soup, turkey thighs, homemade bread and baked apples.

Locavores say the situation is not so dire, and small- and mid-scale farms do the best job of producing whole foods – little “w,” little “f.” Though experts can’t agree on exactly how local is local, they still contend that Americans need a variety of local foods, which are better tasting and higher in nutritional density, to promote good health. Local foods also protect the environment by reducing the amount of fuel used for shipping and support local economies by keeping farm families employed.

Many locavores say that buying foods labeled “organic” at a conventional grocer isn’t the answer.

Timothy Wersan of Windfall Farms in Montgomery, N.Y., a small town with a population of about 5,000 just 80 miles north of New York City, says the United States Department of Agriculture keeps a “dirty secret” when it comes to the definition of organic.

“They constantly try to make inroads into what ‘organic’ means, in terms of making the organic standards more lax, making it more like traditional industrial agriculture,” he said.

The USDA allows some synthetic substances in the production of “certified organic” foods, including isopropanol and ethanol, used to kill algae; peracetic acid, used to disinfect equipment and seed; and tetracycline, an antibiotic also used to control fire blight, a bacterial disease that strikes trees.

Wersan doesn’t use any of it. “We use untreated seed, so no chemicals from the get-go,” he said of Windfall Farms’ 200 unusual vegetable varieties, including sunflower and buckwheat greens, ball turnips and watermelon radishes. “And we don’t use any sprays and no ‘organic’ sprays.”

In fact, locavores no longer use the word “organic.” On a food label, it may indicate that plant fertilizer or livestock feed is chemical-free, but it does not mean that industrial food production methods have been eliminated from the process.

“Pork that comes out of a confined animal feeding operation 10 miles from where you live is no different than the pork that comes out of a confined animal feeding operation a thousand miles from where you live,” said John Ikerd, professor emeritus of agricultural economics at the University of Missouri–Columbia.

Ikerd worries that farm animals raised in confined production environments where they are routinely fed antibiotics and growth hormones are beginning to resist these drugs, which could lead to new diseases among animals and humans.

But “local” is an equally elusive concept. “There is no agreed-upon definition of what local is,” said Gail Feenstra, food systems coordinator for the University of California-Davis Sustainable Agricultural Research and Education Program and the Agricultural Sustainability Institute. “Some food service companies might say 200, 250 miles, others say 300, and others say a day’s drive for a farmer.” Much of the produce sold by a conventional grocer has traveled over 1,500 miles by the time it’s served for dinner.

So what’s a well-intentioned, environmentally aware eater to do?

Locavores and experts in sustainable agriculture encourage the expansion of local food systems through universities, eco-farming conferences and community-supported agriculture programs, or CSAs.

Ikerd and his wife Ellen belong to a CSA and pay about $600 before the start of the season for what’s called a “half-share” of fresh produce for 25 weeks in summer and fall. A full-share costs about $850 and is better suited for larger families. The Ikerds pick up their “share” each week at a farm that’s less than 10 miles away from their home.  They get seven or eight different vegetables, but the varieties depend on availability. There was a shortage of squash last fall because of heavy rains in Missouri, so instead they’re feasting on Swiss chard, beets, garlic and spinach. They freeze a portion of everything they buy to enjoy throughout the winter months.

Introduced in the United States in the mid-1980s, there are more than 400 CSAs today in New England, the Mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes regions and the West Coast.

Another option is to shop local and focus on farmers’ markets, like Chapelle, a strategy that encourages “traditional eating methods,” like less meat and more vegetables, he says. Chappelle reviews farm Web sites and pamphlets to get some of the information he needs to evaluate a farm.

He also approaches farmers at the market with questions like,  “What is the fertilizer – and do they do crop rotations, instead of growing a monoculture and just adding chemical fertilizers?” Shoppers can ask vendors about the location and size of the source farm, growing methods, and ways to prepare seasonal produce.

The life of a locavore does require more work, but Chappelle says it’s worth it.

“I’d rather support locally because, economically speaking, it’s better all the way around for everybody,” he said. “If we think on a communal level – if I support you and you support me – we both do better.”

Ikerd envisions a future in which multiple local farms form networks through CSAs and sell and distribute livestock, poultry, produce and eggs through a single source.

Feenstra said that joining a CSA could change a consumer’s diet for the better. CSA members tend to eat more fruits and vegetables and experiment with new varieties. The main drawback, as the Ikerds’ experience demonstrates, is the lack of variety.

A farmers market, on the other hand, offers food diversity, but most shoppers won’t try new varieties, since, similar to their supermarket buying styles, they tend to shop for the familiar.

“When people don’t know where their food comes from, they can’t or don’t know how safe it is and they can’t follow up on it,” Feenstra said,  “it loses its importance.” Most people won’t be able to get all their food from local sources, “but we can certainly move much farther in that direction.”

“The food system is a bit lopsided at the present time,” she said,  “reflected in the girth of people’s waistlines.”