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Why Don’t Costa Rican Restaurants Use Locally Grown Produce

by Mike Lieberman on September 1, 2010 · 19 comments

Papaya Tree

One of the things that I was most surprised during my trip to Costa Rica was how little the restaurants used locally grown produce. It became even more apparent to me how we have lost touch with our food.

There were coconut trees nearly everywhere that you could turn. Yet it was impossible to go into a restaurant and get fresh coconut water. Some of the restaurants actually had signs saying that they were out of coconut water.

All they had to do was go outside and pick up a coconut off the ground. The trees were steps outside of their stores. It’s not like they had to travel far. There were some entrepreneurial people who were selling the fresh coconuts though.

Some of the restaurants and places that I stayed in only had canned coconut water. It was appalling. There was fresh, locally grown food all around, yet they were selling some canned processed version of what they had available at their fingertips.

One of the places that I stayed at had papaya trees growing on their grounds, but in their breakfast fruit salad they were using chemically sprayed apples and oranges shipped in from Chile (yes, I checked the labels).

When I was in a supermarket, I noticed that the produce was “California Grown.” I didn’t travel all the way to Costa Rica to eat Cali grown produce.

It makes more sense to me in the States how sourcing locally grown produce can be more of a challenge. I don’t expect restaurants to source 100% of their food locally, but when they literally have the stuff growing on your grounds or within feet of them…come on now.

They could even take it one step further and grow their own produce to utilize in their restaurants. They all have the space and certainly live in the climate.

Are we that out of touch with our food and our food systems that broken?


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  • http://www.facebook.com/pauloone Paulo

    How totally insane. It has the perfect climate. Things grow almost spontaneously there and they import fruit from Chile. That's very depressing!

  • Mike Lieberman

    I could literally reach out and grab the stuff from my balcony.

  • http://twitter.com/bkaellner Brad

    Yes Mike, we are that out of touch. Food comes from the store. Only animals eat things directly from nature… we're civilized. Only clean food from cans and packages is fit for us. It's totally psychological. The question is, how do we reverse this trend? How do we convince people to eat from nature again?

  • Sukrita

    Great post, thanks. It seems like a lot of people don't think too much about what they consume.

  • http://veganscene.wordpress.com/ caitlin

    You know, I've heard Costa Rica was meant to be this eco-conscious, very green country- sort of like a Switzerland of Central America.

    It is a small shock to the system to learn about your experience… what a sad state of affairs for the world.

  • Jasonpalenske

    I guess the magic question is did you reach out and pick one?

  • Mike Lieberman

    LOL. No, they were about 6″ out of reach. If I really wanted to, I definitely could've.

  • Mike Lieberman

    Not at all. That doesn't even cross their minds.

  • Mike Lieberman

    True and even animals that are factory farmed are starting to not eat from nature. I think it gets to educating people as to what's going on with their food and opening up the dialog.

  • Mike Lieberman

    It certainly was a bit disappointing.

  • http://LovingNaturesGarden.com Alison Kerr

    Mike, that is just bizarre. As you say, a sad state of affairs. You’ve got me thinking – I wonder how many places this is true of. Why is this happening? Do people not know if the fruit is safe, or when to harvest? Or does it cost less to get food from a distant plantation where wages are lower, or something?

    It reminds me of a friend of mine, an MSc in botany no less, who cut down a really productive plum tree because the fruit was just a mess maker to her. She wanted to plant dwarf apple trees instead, even though apples in my area are vulnerable to a whole bunch of diseases and the plum tree was healthy.

    I couldn’t understand that at all. The fruit was wonderful and right there in her garden. And her kids even liked climbing the tree. I was happy to take bucket-loads of plums from her the fall before she cut it down. I wished I could have that tree in my garden!

  • http://lovingnaturesgarden.com Alison Kerr

    Mike, that is just bizarre. As you say, a sad state of affairs. You've got me thinking – I wonder how many places this is true of. Why is this happening? Do people not know if the fruit is safe, or when to harvest? Or does it cost less to get food from a distant plantation where wages are lower, or something?

    It reminds me of a friend of mine, an MSc in botany no less, who cut down a really productive plum tree because the fruit was just a mess maker to her. She wanted to plant dwarf apple trees instead, even though apples in my area are vulnerable to a whole bunch of diseases and the plum tree was healthy.

    I couldn't understand that at all. The fruit was wonderful and right there in her garden. And her kids even liked climbing the tree. I was happy to take bucket-loads of plums from her the fall before she cut it down. I wished I could have that tree in my garden!

  • Mike Lieberman

    Seriously. I would love to have my own fruit trees. The disconnect between food, nature, health and ourselves is soooo out of sorts.

  • http://www.cookingworld.biz Pam @ Kitchen Cookware

    I am also surprised that people were not using their local food resources and using US grown and made food supply. Maybe they want to eat only western food as they thought it was better maybe?

  • Mike Lieberman

    I dunno. I was kinda digging the typical food and casados there.

  • Ellen Sousa

    When we visited Costa Rica about 10 yrs ago, the hotels that we stayed at were very community-minded, using locally-grown produce and training/hiring local people as tour guides and staff to keep the tourist money in the local economy…sounds as though CR has become a real tourist destination in recent years so the eco-friendly ethos might be disappearing in competition for tourist money…

    Lapa Rios on the Osa Peninsula and Finca Rosa Blanca outside of San Jose come to mind…both of them wonderful places and life-changing experiences for us…truly people who care about the world around them and are devoted to inspiring change….

  • Mike Lieberman

    They are still very eco-conscious, but the American way is definitely creeping it’s way in.

  • Maucalvo

    I am fron costa Rica and I can see you never been inside the real costa rica culture, when you were a tourist in tourist places, you can`t see or the know the truth of the country in you dont be part of the real culture, I invite you to come and interact with real locals and go through the fairs on Saturdays in the villages around San Jose and in the province. Before you do and articule and investigation has to be done, and you did not do your homework. that`s happends in tourist places but not in all Costa Rica and less for the poor peaople who eats from local production.

  • http://www.UrbanOrganicGardener.com Mike Lieberman

    That is correct. I was speaking of the places that I was visiting, which I never stated…so they might’ve been local places.