During my ever-present quest for food transparency I stumbled onto a new site, Real Time Farms. Created by a team of 20 something geniuses working for google, this site is designed to provide the food consumer with a resource to find out exactly where and how their food was grown, distributed, and prepared. The creator was featured in a recent TEDx video, and does a much better job explaining the project's genesis than I ever could. The link is included below for your viewing pleasure. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XZUidbcwuc]
Real time farms allows you, (the eater) to find farmers, farmers markets, food artisans and restaurants that believe in food transparency. Currently most of the data is concentrated on the east and west coast, but the good news is the site is crowd sourced and growing everyday. Which means any visitor to a farmers market can post information about their favorite vendors, and the journey their food took from farm to fork. In addition, local farmers, restauranteurs and food artisans now have a central website to help show who is "walking the walk" when it comes to sourcing local and sustainable ingredients and who is just "talking the talk." While some may claim it is just one more website, I think that it will be a powerful tool in the quest for food transparency.