I recently heard part of a piece on NPR which discussed food, particularly processed food. Food scientists can't/don't/won't deal with the "whole food"... they need to break it down into its components and deal with each component individually as though it was a food unto itself, which it is not. The example I heard in the short time I was able to listen was about carrots vs. beta carotene. When we hear "carrot" nowadays, many of us (thanks to food scientists and manufacturers of processed foods) think "beta carotene." However, carrots are much much more than beta carotene, and we NEED the whole carrot, not just the beta carotene. The primary reason we hear so much about beta carotene is that there's not much money to be had in selling carrots. The money is in processing the real, whole foods into components and smushing them together into nutritionally deficient, but "tasty," globs. Buying non-local food is sometimes "necessary" (e.g. we don't have many local apples left in January here in Minnesota, and we never have local oranges...) but the carrots and beef and seasonal produce, as well as non-food items ( e.g. wooden [non-lead-based paint] toys) should ideally come from nearby. Why? Two reasons that come immediately to mind are (1) shipping (which further breaks down to (a) product cost and (b) unnecessarily burned fuel [wasted energy]) of products produced far from home and (2) much more of your dollar spent on locally-produced goods stays local, making a healthier local economy for yourself and your neighbors. Another reason that comes to mind is freshness of your food. If it's local and fresh, nutrient-killing pasteurization is a less important consideration. Just a thought... we have Denatured Alcohol... maybe we should refer to our processed food products as Denatured Food. JF, Thank You for your comments about Wal-Mart. Many times I've wanted to comment on remarks on the list about things "you can buy at Wal-Mart" and Sam's Club... just didn't want to stick my neck out like that!  But since you did... many people know that WM sells some organic foods. Does everyone know about the very significant effort WM made to water down the organic standard so that THEY can sell "organic" more cheaply and MAKE EVEN MORE MONEY by selling more volume of more crap. Paul Bruesch Stillwater, MN