The conflicting information about nutrition we receive from health professionals and the media has become so confusing it makes most people want to throw up their hands and console themselves with a super-sized combo-meal. Low-carb, no-carb, high protein, low-fat, high-fat? We stand in the grocery store aisle paralyzed by inscrutable labels, counting the grams of trans-fat and saturated fat, comparing one breakfast cereal to the next for antioxidant levels and effective carbohydrates.

Our confusion is compounded by the fact that we are so far removed from the sources and production of our basic sustenance. Horror stories about mad cow disease, E. coli, pesticides and genetic engineering have led us to view our food with increasing skepticism. And a great deal of our uncertainty has come about because we do not know much about our food – how it was produced, where it originated – and what exactly are all these unpronounceable chemical names on food labels?

If food labels actually answered our questions about the origin of the product as clearly as they list carbohydrate and fat content, your next package of hamburger meat might read: This hamburger contains the meat of perhaps hundreds of cows from any number of locations in the United States or the world. In all probability, the cows were fed grain and one or more of the following ingredients: steroids, antibiotics, litter from the floors of huge chicken-feeding operations, and parts of rendered pigs and horses.

And the beef industry is by no means the only guilty party. Unfortunately, the provenance of chicken is not much better. The Delmarva Peninsula on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay has the highest concentration of large-scale factory chicken farms in the world. Over 700,000,000 broilers are produced there annually, so if you have had chicken in the last year, chances are good that some of it came from this region. To control infection and kill bacteria in the tightly packed chicken houses, arsenic and antibiotics are added to the feed. Arsenic has been found in the eggs as well as in Maryland groundwater sources near the industry farms. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found that the Delmarva Peninsula has some of the highest cancer rates anywhere in the United States.

So if you are a vegetarian, you must be safe, right? Think again. Currently there are over 3,000 different pesticides registered for use on the fruits and vegetables available for sale in America. Complete health hazard evaluations have been completed for only about 10% of those chemicals. Each year, new formulations come into use, but because of cost and time factors, extensive tests are rarely undertaken. Often, we only learn of the adverse effects of these pesticides years after people have been exposed.

Chemicals banned in the United States sometimes make their way to our tables by way of imported produce, and endanger workers in the developing world. For example, the pesticide Nemagon, whose use was banned in the United States in 1979 because of its cancer-causing effects, continued to be used on banana crops in Nicaragua up until the late 1980s. In spite of the prohibition in the States, the Nicaraguan workers were exposed to the chemical unknowingly and risked birth defects and higher cancer rates in order to provide us with inexpensive bananas.

The good news is that there is a sustainable solution: eat local foods that do not need labels. Cleveland is fortunate to have several thriving local farmers' markets offering local fruits, vegetables, free-range meats, and even honey, cheese, eggs and bread.

In this buyers' market we have the benefit of actually being able to ask the growers about their use of pesticides and fertilizers. The freshness of this local produce offers additional benefits as well. For example, the substance in broccoli that prevents cancer is found in higher concentrations in fresher broccoli heads and sprouts.

Get to know your food. Ask your grocers and restaurant owners where they get their meat and produce, and ask them to buy from local sources whenever possible. Resolve to start or participate in a community garden in your neighborhood. Eat less fast food and processed food. Demand locally produced food, so that you can protect your health, contribute to the local economy, and eat more healthily.

Wendy Johnson, MD, is Medical Director of the Cleveland Department of Public Health and is also a family practitioner.

Illustration by Paul Mayer.