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<\/a>\nBill McKibben on <\/a>\nBill McKibben on \nWhy Future Prosperity Depends on More Socializing —\nAccess to cheap energy made us rich, wrecked our climate and left us lonely<\/a>,\nand what to do about it:\n\nOften a farmers\u2019 market is the catalyst \u2014 not just because people find that they like local produce, but because they actually meet each other again. This is not sentiment talking; this is data. A team of sociologists recently followed shoppers around supermarkets and then farmers\u2019 markets. You know the drill at the Stop\u2019n\u2018Shop: you come in the automatic door, fall into a light fluorescent trance, visit the stations of the cross around the perimeter of the store, exit after a discussion of credit or debit, paper or plastic. But that\u2019s not what happens at farmers\u2019 markets. On average, the sociologists found, people were having ten times as many conversations per visit. They were starting to rebuild the withered network that we call a community. So it shouldn\u2019t surprise us that farmers\u2019 markets are the fastest-growing part of our food economy; they are simply the way that humans have always shopped, acquiring gossip and good cheer along with calories.\n<\/blockquote>\nLocal food isn’t just about food: it’s also about conversations and community.\n\nSo if you want to act the way you feel<\/a>, one way to start is to change your\n\nobesity network<\/a>\nby going to the farmer’s market.\nIt’s good for the local economy and environment, too.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bill McKibben on Why Future Prosperity Depends on More Socializing — Access to cheap energy made us rich, wrecked our climate and left us lonely, and what to do about it: Often a farmers\u2019 market is the catalyst \u2014 not just because people find that they like local produce, but because they actually meet each […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,40,42,44,60,73],"tags":[2761,1484,2773,1485,659,409,2775,830,931,1486],"class_list":["post-457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","category-economy","category-food-and-drink","category-health","category-plants","category-science","tag-agriculture","tag-bill-mckibben","tag-community","tag-conversation","tag-drink","tag-farmers-market","tag-food","tag-local-food","tag-obesity","tag-psychology-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Gj0O-7n","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}