Only a generation ago, long before the term locavore became popular, nearly all the meat, fruit and ­vegetables that families ate came from within 50 miles of their homes.

Food had a face; consumers had a familiarity with the farm and the farmer who produced it.

Refrigerators held fresh milk, cheese and butter delivered at dawn from a family-run dairy farm. The nearby butcher shop offered only locally raised grass-fed and finished meat: pastured pork, lamb and poultry, cut to order. Fruits and vegetables were the mainstay of the family diet and preserved by grandmothers intent on saving the best for the worst of the seasons.

“As a kid, we’d go to the store once a month to get butter and some items for ­baking and other supplies, but we got everything else from the farmers,” says Mark Elliott, chef and owner of Elliott’s on Linden. “But now, our connection with our food and where it comes from has been lost.

“People have been programmed for the supermarket. Kids don’t understand where the food on their plate comes from other than the microwave or a box. Often, even in our restaurant, we’ll get people who don’t appreciate what it takes to bring good food to the table. They just want it fast.”

Unsustainable System

According to Michael Pollan in “The Food Movement, Rising,” Americans spend a smaller ­percentage of their income on food than any people in history — slightly less than 10 percent — and even a smaller amount of their time preparing it: a mere 31 minutes a day on average, including clean-up.

The average food ingredient travels as much as 1,500 miles to reach the plate. This travel has an effect on the environment, ­farming practices and the quality of the food. In addition, these food miles take a toll on the nutritional value of the food.

Local-food movement advocates, including Pollan, say that today’s food and farming economy is “unsustainable” — that it cannot go on in its current form much longer “without courting a breakdown of some kind, whether environmental, economic or both.”

“We are now in the midst of a great change in thinking about how we want to live and go forward,” says Deborah Krasner, the James Beard award-winning cookbook author and food professional. Krasner, who made a recent visit to Elliot’s on Linden to discuss her new book, “Good Meat: The Complete Guide to Sourcing and Cooking Sustainable Meat,” feels that bypassing the industrial food system benefits all consumers, allowing transparency along the whole chain, from growers to consumers.

Connect With Farmers

Krasner began buying meat and poultry from local family farms and then through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) cooperative, all within a 10-mile radius of her Vermont home long before anyone was talking about being a locavore.

She discovered that the products of sustainable farming methods looked and tasted different.

“The yolks of eggs are deep orange, the pork is firm and ­flavorful, and the beef tastes like a great steak you may have eaten years ago,” she says.

In addition, the nutrition profile of sustainably raised food is also much different, healthier, she explains.

“Just consider the astonishing fact that eating red meat, rather than compromising your health, might be an actual benefit,” she says.

Krasner says her husband’s ­cholesterol dropped dramatically after a year of eating grass-fed and -finished beef, which is much lower in saturated fats than ­conventional beef. What fat there is contains more Omega-3 fatty acids (good, heart-healthy fats), and the antioxidant vitamins A and E. Grass-fed beef, in particular, has a high level of CLA ­(conjugated linoleic acid), which shows promising results fighting tumors and breast cancer.

“The sad thing is that these ­flavors and health benefits were once the birthright of every meat, egg, dairy and poultry consumer in this country before the advent of industrial meat production and the loss of so many family farms,” Krasner says.

The good news is consumers can once again have these benefits, as long as they are ­willing to order directly from farmers and store the meat for the coming season, or buy it in smaller cuts from ­specialty retailers.

Four years ago, Krasner resolved to grow all the protein her family needed. They raise chickens, duck, geese, turkey and guinea fowl, plus a couple of lambs. They purchase pork and beef from nearby farmers.

“It’s been an extraordinary ­experience raising our own food. We also do our own processing in our driveway,” she says. “It’s a family event. My husband helps, and my daughter is in the kitchen vacuum-sealing the meat. Last time we did 25 chickens in the morning, broke for lunch and then 15 guinea fowl. We have enough for a year, and they are in the freezer.”

“Good Meat” is a resource that demystifies local foods for the newcomer and demonstrates how eating within one’s own foodshed is as simple as it is satisfying. Krasner says she wrote the book to encourage others to cook the whole animal, “piece by piece, nose-to-tail, in ways to honor both the animal and the farmer who raised it.”

Not a Trend

ForcChef Elliott, eating local is not a trend; it is the best way to do business. He makes weekly road trips around the region in a refrigerated van he just purchased for the sole purpose of bringing top quality, fresh products to the restaurant.

“We go to the farmer to get knowledgeable,” he says. “We ask a lot of questions and look around at the operation until we are satisfied that we can get what we want and get it fresh versus something that’s been on the road for days.”

Another important reason to buy local meat, according to Krasner, is it offers the consumer the option of buying large or primal cuts, such as one-half of a side of beef.

“If you have it cut, or butcher it yourself, and freeze it, then it is very economical,” she says. “You get an amazing array of food in the freezer when you look at the whole animal and honor it by using all of it. To buy at the supermarket is to sacrifice this, plus there is so much waste in the processing of the animal.”

During Krasner’s visit, a small group of farmers, locavores and restaurant patrons gathered to watch Elliot as he skillfully butchered a whole lamb delivered by Santa Maria farm in Foxfire.

Elliott cuts his own meat, and that is unusual for a restaurant. In the demonstration, Elliott explains how to cut the meat to save the all the parts for cooking use.

“Our objective is to use every part of this animal in the restaurant,” he says while touching a tray of fat, bones and glands he cut from the lamb. “This will be ground or made into a stock for soups or reduced for glazes and sauces.”

Elliot feels it is a privilege to get to know the farmers and see how they raise the food, and that this is a benefit for the restaurant’s patrons.

“The customer needs to know this lamb is raised down the road, not in another country,” he says. “We can talk with them about its nutritional profile and how it’s prepared so they can make an informed choice.”

Save the Farm

People are searching for healthy food grown on nearby farms. According to the American Farmland Trust, meeting this demand will take more farms, more farmers and more farmland growing local food. Their vision is more towns surrounded by healthy farms and a thriving infrastructure in place to make fresh food from local farms a reality for everyone.

“We can choose to repair and nurture our environment by ­supporting humane and responsible farmers, and by eating foods that enrich rather than pollute our bodies and the land,” Krasner says.

Thanks to CSAs, such as the Sandhills Farm to Table Cooperative (sandhillsfarm2table.com), farmers markets and websites (eatwild.com) that lead consumers to local farmers, it is easier than ever to consume a variety of wholesome products produced in the local foodshed.

“It’s about that connection with our food — appreciating the work it took for the local farmers to produce it and bring it to the table,” Elliot says. “When you know that, it makes the food so much more of an experience — a healthy and delightful one.”

Contact local freelance writer Claudia Watson at cwatson87@nc.rr.com.