Naxos island in Greece is a gastronomical destination with its plenty produce and dreamy foods. It’s a self sufficient island, it produces everything, and also exports its produce to the rest of Greece and abroad. It’s worldwide known for its potatoes, written also in the Guinness Book, for its cheeses with their special aroma, and for its excellent meat quality.
Farm to fork cuisine is a second nature to Naxians in the mainland, making it a perfect place to indulge in a passion for food and drink. There’re a plethora of restaurants and taverns all over the island that will delight your taste buds, and leave you satisfied gastronomically and spiritually, for every budget and every taste. If you love to wander to off-the-beaten-track locations and explore through the eyes of a local, you’ll enjoy sustainable hidden food places with delicious seasonal farm to fork food.
How does eating locally helps the environment?
Eating locally is one of the most important reasons to apply to our life if we want to contribute to improving our carbon footprint, because the local food doesn’t travel as far to arrive on our plate.
By eating locally we help the environment by reducing our food miles since food spends less time in transit from farm to plate, and therefore
- less harmful greenhouse gas emissions are released into the atmosphere, meaning less air pollution
- It ensures that your food hasn’t been refrigerated for hours or even days, which also produces mass amounts of greenhouse gasses
- Food loses fewer nutrients and incurs less spoilage
- We have less waste. Because of the shorter distribution chains for local foods, less food is wasted in distribution, warehousing and merchandising
- Preserves clean open space fields: Eating locally helps local farms survive and thrive because you help maintain farmland, keeping land from being developed into wild nature sprawl
- Eating locally means not only you pay the employees, but you also spend money into the local community, which helps to sustain local producers and create jobs for your friends, neighbors, for the villagers who support their families, meaning contributing to improved infrastructure, and invest in the community socially and ecnomically.
- Eating locally is good for the soil. Local food encourages diversification of local agriculture, which reduces the reliance on monoculture which is the single crops grown over a wide area to the detriment of soils.
By eating locally today, you help ensure that there will be farms in your community tomorrow. This is vital for our long-term food security, especially with such an uncertain energy future we have and our current reliance on fossil fuels to produce, package, transport and store food. Eating locally grown food is environmentally friendly, and it’s a real investment with many benefits for the consumer, grower and the community. Eating locally contributes to the health of the planet.
What are the benefits of farm to table?
Eating locally and seasonally, farm to table, means more nutrient density, plentiful probiotic produce, freshness, better taste and purity of food, wellness benefits, as well as taking care of the local environment .
Local produce with farm to table meals is the best choice to make for you, and for the health of the planet. Choosing farm to fork places to eat benefit both the restaurant and the farmer. The restaurant gets delicious and fresh produce, and the farmer gets recognition for their hard work as well as guaranteed business. Many times, farm to fork restaurants have a close relationship with a particular farmer, and can request that they plant certain foods, thus offering an excitted menu with unique tasty dishes.
Why Eating Locally is a must? Why farm to table is important?
Because of
- better health. Pure soil eliminates pathogens at the farm level which helps reduce human illnesses. Eating locally promotes food safety, meaning better health.
- eating locally and seasonally grown food is fresher, healthier and tastes better always, because it spends less time in transit from farm to plate, and therefore, loses fewer nutrients and incurs less spoilage. It’s no secret that locally grown food is of higher quality, full of flavor, and tastes better.
- higher nutrient value. The food that is grown and harvested locally is usually given more time to ripen. Eating local is not only tastier, it’s also healthier!
- tasting new and better flavors. Eating locally farm to table food, stimulates variety. You discover interesting new foods, tasty new ways to prepare food, and a new appreciation of the pleasure of each season’s foods.
- less waste or zero waste is used due to shorter distribution, less food is wasted in distribution, warehousing and merchandising, or there is not warehousing or merchandising at all.
- eating locally supports local farmers, and boosts community’s economy because money stay in the local economy.
- eating locally creates more vibrant communities by connecting people with the farmers, and with friends.
- the “Know the How To”, the local growers can tell you how the food was grown.
- The attraction of tourists. The farm to tableeating locally and seasonally promotes agrotourism which helps draw tourists to the region.
- eating locally grown food helps you develop a connection with food. You become more aware of what you’re putting in your body. You can read more here
and as the Greek philosophers believed: “happiness starts from the belly. To get to the extreme states of bliss, one needs to focus his mind in his belly, and also understand that his mind is an energy field”
What is the farm to table trend?
Farm to table trend is a new dimension of a food trend that has led to a great interest in fresh, local and organic foods. Farm to table trend means that the food we eat including its ingredients has directly been sourced from the farm where it was grown or raised. Farm to table trend means use food that has been grown, prepared, and consumed either on-site in a single location, or without passing through a middleman such as a grocery store or other distributors.
Farm to table trend means growing food sustainably, which means treating the farm like an ecosystem; caring for and regenerating soil, air and water, and treating animals and people humanely. Farm to table trend leads to direct partnerships with the farm owners, which creates a relationship with transparency that results in fresher food.
Farm to table trend arrived because people are becoming more and more aware of the impact that their lifestyle choices have on our their health, the wider society and the environment. Our diets are intimately connected to the complex food supply chains that are existent around us. You can read more here. Farm to table trend is a healthier choice than the processed and packaged foods. People benefit from the quality and freshness of the farm to fork food, and they can feel good about the impacts of the choices they make.
Because no transportation or little transportation is involved, buying produce locally and eating locally makes it incredibly easy for all to find an astonishing variety of produce at affordable prices all year round. At the forefront, the farm to table trend is the idea to create a good food system that is beneficial to humankind.
What eating locally farm to fork means at ELaiolithos?
ELaiolithos’ sustainable farm to fork, farm to table food philosophy is “Let’s Live Up to Our Values”. Enjoy at the premises delicious local farm to table meals. All ELaiolithos’ produce and ingredients come from its own farms within a 5 km distance only. Our family has a strong imprint of local production in Naxos for generations. The passion and the will to create, the love for the land, the respect for Naxian tradition, and solidarity and transparency characterize all family farm producers.
Come and enjoy at ELaiolithos our menu that is featuring nothing but all-natural farm to fork Naxian cuisine, where the “authentic” and the “unique” graces our dishes.
Dine sustainably, in an unbeatable location, in the core of Naxos’ island, with stunning views. At ELaiolithos we cultivate contentment with what we have in our Naxian nature and tradition.The root of our produce comes from pure soil and NEVER any additives or pesticides were used! We are passionate about food, we value our health, and we value your health! At ELaiolithos we show you that farm to fork food is much more than what is on your plates- it’s pure clean eating!
Agriculture for us isn’t just work, it is Art.
There is so much that goes into making our farm to fork food. It takes seeds and soil, water and work, protection, patience and respect. For us here at ELaiolithos, respecting the food means appreciating the back-story of the food. ELaiolithos‘ food really stands for its quality – it’s really precious! Only organic fertilizer is applied as a basal dressing, livestock goat or sheep dung. Pure soil gives us “Clean” healthy food. We live the organic lifestyle. We’re Green with 100% Sustainable DNA. We’re farm to fork.
“Quality is not an act, it is a habit.” ~Aristotle
