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Eat local!
 Local food is often fresher and tastier. Support your community and choose local growers over big agriculture.
Eat Well Guide - find fresh, local, sustainably produced food near you. Lists farms, restaurants, and markets or stores.
Local Harvest - comprehensive directory of farmers' markets, farm stands, U-Pick Farms and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs
Why it’s important
 Buying local food not only helps local farmers thrive, it reduces energy consumption. Estimates on how long the average food travels from pasture to plate range from 1200 to 2500 miles. A lot of energy is expended freezing, refrigerating, and trucking that food around. Eating locally grown food means less fossil fuel burned in preparation and transport.
Local food is often safer, too. Even when it’s not organic, small farms tend to be less aggressive than large factory farms about dousing their wares with chemicals. And while fruits and vegetables from overseas may seem more exotic, they may also have been produced in countries with weaker environmental standards. Finally, small family farms are more likely to grow more interesting varieties (think lettuce that isn’t iceberg and apples that aren’t red delicious), making food more flavorful, protecting biodiversity and preserving a wider agricultural gene pool, an important factor in long-term food security.
Learn more
C3 blog - Eating locally grown food was July's Carbon Conscious Consumer action. Visit the blog to learn more about the campaign and steps you can take to develop climate-friendly habits.
10 Ways to Eat Well - advice from Sierra magazine's "Mr. Green"
Learn more about the Conscious Consumer Marketplace. |
