If you’re into eating healthy, choosing a restaurant can be more of a challenge. You want to know the origin of your food. Where did it come from? Are the ingredients natural?
One way you can know is by choosing a farm to table restaurant. We explain from farm to table means and give 7 reasons why you should choose one.
What Does a Farm to Table Restaurant Mean?
What is farm to table? Although there may be different interpretations, farm-to-table essentially means that the food comes directly from specific, locally sourced farms. The food never goes through the regular process of flowing from the farm to a store or distributor.
In some cases, the “table” is located at or near the actual farm. The chefs prepare dishes using ingredients that are grown at the farm. With other operations, the restaurant establishes a relationship with a farm, buying food directly from them without going through a distributor or food market.
Now, let’s talk about the 7 benefits of choosing farm to table restaurants near you.
Reason 1: Eat the Freshest of the Fresh
If you’re Googling “fresh food near me”, your best bet is a farm-to-table restaurant. Many of the chain restaurants use frozen or packaged foods disguised with a lot of flavors and sauces. The goal is to ensure you don’t notice.
However, there is no “disguising” the difference between prepared and fresh foods. The flavor of fresh farm to table dishes will explode in your mouth. Once you recognize this difference, you’ll be hard-pressed to eat at traditional restaurants again.
Reason 2: Eat Natural Ingredients
If you actually pay attention to the "ingredients" in modern food, it’s easy to become horrified. Think about how food is produced today. Processed foods, growth hormones, chemically engineered, tainted meat, and dairy all combine to produce foods your body doesn’t recognize and can’t digest properly.
Farm to table means you’re eating natural food that is produced locally and responsibly. The restaurant knows what ingredients are used in the dishes because they know the suppliers.
Reason 3: Better Nutrition
It’s normal for food to be picked before they’re ripe these days. That’s because most food has to be shipped, stored, or aged before it’s used to make dishes at a restaurant. While it may help fruits and vegetables last long enough to reach your table, picking food too early often means they lack nutritional value.
Farm to table restaurants serve fresh foods that don’t have to “last long” enough to reach your table. They are fully ripe and ready to provide the nutrition your body needs to keep you healthy and strong.
Reason 4: Better for the Environment
If you care about our planet, farm to table is the way to go. Locally produced foods don’t need to be shipped a long way by truck, train, or plane, leading to fewer emissions and pollution released into the environment.
By supporting local farmers, you’re also helping a family-run business, rather than a large plant or mass food producers that use pesticides and other chemicals to treat crops or reduce bug infestations. You can also stand against farming practices that end up damaging the earth, plants, and animals.
Reason 5: Know Where Your Food Has Been
If you order a meal at a traditional or chain restaurant, you can’t know where those fruits, vegetables, or meat came from. That could have come from a slaughterhouse or a producer that uses unethical and inhumane practices in order to harvest meat from pigs, cows, and chickens. Imagine chickens or pigs raised in tiny boxes that don’t allow them to run free or ever see the sun.
When you sit down at a farm to table restaurant you know where the food comes from. You know where (and how) your food was sourced and produced. You even know how it wound up on your table.
Reason 6: More Variety of Foods
You might believe the myth that the foods and ingredients of dishes at farm-to-table restaurants are limited because they only buy from local farms. You’d be wrong.
Your dishes can be created a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, meat, and dairy from local farms and producers. The only boundaries lie in the limits of the chef’s imagination.
Reason 7: Menus That Change With the Seasons
A local farm is going to grow crops or raise livestock during certain seasons. While this may seem limited, it actually leads to a menu that rotates to take advantage of seasonal ingredients or things that may only be available for a limited time.
You’ll always be able to find and enjoy new dishes at farm to table restaurants. Whether fall root vegetables or summer corn, the ingredients are ever-changing and surprising.
Bonus Reason: More Ethical Dining
Choosing farm-to-table means supporting farms that use ethically responsible farming practices. These practices can include free-range meat, non-GMO crops, and organic farming methods. If you care about "putting your money where your mouth is", eating farm to table is the way to go.
About Buckingham Farms
Buckingham Farms in Fort Myers, Florida operates an 80+ acre ranch, hydroponic farm, country store, restaurant, and Rustic Barn for weddings. Serving the residents of Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Sanibel and Captiva Islands, Bonita Springs, and Naples, we specialize in providing the freshest fruits and vegetables, and farm-produced products.
Our farm to table restaurant serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner, featuring farm-fresh classics, sandwiches straight from the cutting board, and premium dinners. You can even order a Friday Night Dinner To-Go.
Contact us to make reservations or inquire about using the Rustic Barn for your next event.