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Cultivating a healthier lifestyle

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Local produce is getting a higher profile, but growers face challenges

Many of the vegetables available in supermarkets have clocked up impressive air miles in their short lives. They have probably been flown to Hong Kong from Australia or South Africa, and by the time you have got them home and cooked them, they will have left a sizeable carbon footprint on the earth.

As well as being environmentally unsound, this practice of eating such well travelled vegetables goes against the natural way of things and is not good for your body. Practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine advise their patients to eat produce grown in the region they live in, so that they are in season.

Organic farmers agree wholeheartedly. They grow seasonal vegetables, year round, which they say are better in every way than supermarket-bought vegetables; they are free of pesticides, perishable and therefore much more likely to be fresh. Organic farming for local consumption reduces the transport and food processing energy used to bring it from the field to the plate.

In Hong Kong it is possible to go to the organic farmer's markets in Wan Chai and on Tai Wo Road in Tai Po every Sunday and Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden on the first Sunday of every month to buy vegetables that have been picked that morning. They may be smaller and less uniform in size than the rows of packed vegetables on supermarket shelves, but they are undeniably tastier.

Despite their obvious benefits, however, organic vegetables are not that popular in Hong Kong. Shoppers baulk at paying a higher price than they need to, regardless of any health benefits.

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