A simple step you can take: Eat more locally grown food
“Eating locally isn’t just a fad like the various diets advertised on late-night TV – it may be one of the most important ways we save ourselves and the planet.”
– Dr. David Suzuki, chair, The David Suzuki Foundation
As a follow up to this recent photoset on eating locally grown food, here are set of resources to help you take steps to reduce how far your food travels before it reaches you.
According to their website, “The best organic food is what’s grown closest to you. Use our website to find farmers’ markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area, where you can buy produce, grass-fed meats, and many other goodies.”
This is a great resource/directory for locating organic farms, community supported farms and other organic and local food sources. On the Local Harvest site you can search for local Farms, CSA programs, Farmer’s Markets, Restaurants, and Grocery/Co-ops that provide local food options for you and your family.
(I personally joined a local CSA that I found through this site — and the food we received in our shares was amazing.)
2. Local Food Directories - National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service
This is a similar resource to Local Harvest allowing you to search for and find directories of source for locally grown food in your area.
They mainly list directories instead of lists of farms and stores — for example, a search for New Hampshire, USA resulted in three directories:
- New Hampshire Organic Farm Guide (NOFA-NH) - Listings of organic farms by county
- New Hampshire’s Own - A directory of local orchards, farms, and farmer’s markets.
- New Hampshire Farm Stand Directory - A directory of farm stands in the state
Between these two resources, you can probably find most of outlets for locally grown food in your area.
From the site: “EatLocalChallenge.com is a group blog written by authors who are interested in the benefits of eating food grown and produced in their local foodshed.”
The Eat Local Challenge is an interesting group weblog with a lot of information on the challenges of eating locally and how the authors solve them. They provide a lot of background on the benefits and importance of buying local foods, as well as the impacts on your local community that it will have.
4. Wikipedia entry on Local Food
While this isn’t the best reference as of this writing, I want to include it for a couple reasons. First, there is some good information that that could be useful to you immediately. Second, I encourage you to add more information to the entry there as you learn more about local eating. It’s important that we share the knowledge we develop, and wikipedia is a great place to do that.
This is a companion site to the book Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally. Their getting started guide is a fast read and will introduce you to some of the important ideas behind eating locally.
If you have other resources or ideas, please leave them in the comments and I’ll consider adding them to this list -
Thanks for your comment and what a great site you have here. Look forward to adding your link to http;//anewgreenearth.com
Thanks for your comment and what a great site you have here. Look forward to adding your link to http:;//anewgreenearth.com
Thanks for your comment and what a great site you have here. Look forward to adding your link to http://anewgreenearth.com
So sorry about my errors, think I need to pack up for the night.
But your link on my site is correct, keep up the great work, best wishes,
The Artist
Thanks for leaving the nice comments. Take it easy and thanks for stopping!
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Thanks for the reminder to buy your produce at local farmers markets.
I just wondered what impact this thinking would have on Fairtrade.
I am just back from four months working in Nicarauga and saw at first hand the difference that such co-operatives are making to people’s lives.
I wish there are locally grown food here in the desert! The food we eat comes from as far as Australia, Holland and South Africa, etc. Really great insight, my family used to buy from farmer’s market in Japan where we previously lived.
BTW, I am including this post in the Carnival of Family Life August 27 Edition.
Vegetarian Carnival #6: chock full of recipe goodness…
Welcome to the August 27, 2007, edition of the vegetarian carnival.
Let’s start with the recipes - this week we have a fabulous selection to inspire you in the kitchen. Lisa presents the interesting-sounding Watermelon & Feta Salad With Oliv…
[…] of resources to help you take steps to reduce how far your food travels before it reaches you in A simple step you can take: Eat more locally grown food at 21st Century […]
[…] to save oil stores, protect global food supplies and save the environment? Then be a 21st Century Citizen and eat locally grown […]
we used to have a local farmers market here in our town but due to low turnout, we stopped having it–it was so sad. I hope it comes back one day.
[…] A simple step you can take: Eat more locally grown food […]
[…] please leave them in the comments and I’ll consider adding them to this list - Related PostsA simple step you can take: Eat more locally grown food“Eating locally isn’t just a fad like the various diets advertised on late-night TV – it may […]
It was an honour to include this post in the Healthy & Fit Family this month. Please link back the carnival and let your readers know about the other excellent resources that were included.
http://www.babylune.com/the-fifteenth-healthy-fit-family/
[…] conscious site, 21st Century Citizen, shares an informative post on steps you can take right now to eat locally grown food. Not only is eating locally grown produce good for the local economy, it usually introduces us to […]
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makes sense. we all ways try to eat at the local restaurants to support them. the farmer’s market at the berger center is all ways calling to us. maybe it’s time to re-visit.
[…] our life style. But there are many small steps we can take in our quest to tackle global warming. Here is a small tip which all of us can follow without drastically altering out lifestyle. Going local […]