Man, it really is. There's drawbacks to living in a semi rural area, but the ease of obtaining fresh foods is nice, albeit not always possible due to needing to know someone to get some foods because it's more profitable to sell it off in bulk.

No bullshit, im so spoiled with beef now that it's absurd. Having access to reasonably priced (essentially at cost) meat that I know how the cattle are fed and treated, and has amazing taste has ruined me for grocery store beef. We don't even eat beef often, because of a combination of ecological impact and price (even at the family discount, it ain't cheap).

Pork products, I can't say that every product is automatically better than store bought, but anything processed will be unless you pick brands very carefully.

And don't get me started on how much better chicken is when the breed isn't so focused on time to market. I just don't have a good relationship with the locals that sell chicken lol. So it's a less frequent thing to have the better meat.

We have our own eggs now, after having adopted the first chicken last year. Our little marans hen lays almost every day, and they are soooo good. Rich, with a superb white. She's almost totally free range since our birds are pets, so there's a distinct shift in flavor from egg to egg sometimes. And that's a plus, imo. The depth of flavor is amazing compared to caged hens, but it isn't so strong that you can't bake delicate things with them too.

Legit, making friends in a community shared with farmers is always going to benefit you. And, when you treat them like a friend and neighbor, you end up learning more about the foods they raise in conversation, as well as sometimes getting a call for help and doing some work. That's a good thing as well, imo.