Buying Locally:

Food for thought

When you purchase food at the supermarket

do you know where it comes from?

Most likely,

you’ve never thought to look

If you were to take a look, you would notice that your pepper

is from California

It was picked 4-7 days ago,

& Traveled about 1500 miles to get to your supermarket

Now its on your plate.

Or it could be from Mexico

Asia

Canada

even South America

the typical prepared meal in America

contains ingredients from at least

5countries outside of the U.S.

The resulting pollution from the miles food travel from production to plate,

increase substantially

when we import from around the world

import of fruits, nuts and veggiesinto California by airplane

released more than 70,000 tons of CO2

That’s equivalent to more than

12,000 cars on the road

In 2005,

Currently… energy prices are low

The only factor that supports the

environmentally unfriendly & wasteful

food system our country enjoys

Small time family farms

with honest intentions are being shut down

To make way for large scale,business agriculture

fueled by the government

…Most often with hidden agendas

our oil and energy reserves

will not last forever

As you may know…

The Earth’s population will continue to grow

Putting a greater demand on our already

strained agriculture and environment

More food will be demanded

As a result…

we will be forced to reevaluate

the ways in which we feed our world

Soon,

We will need to place a greater emphasis on

energy efficiency

&small scale sustainable farms

Exactly like the ones that we outsource presently

our current agricultural methods are destroyingand polluting our land and water supplies

Unfortunately,

Our health is sufferingfrom the pollution we are creating

Our food security is being threatened

with no one else to blame but ourselves

Pollution from Importing food out of country

is putting a strain on

our environment & our health

We are already doing irreversible damage Why are we allowing it to worsen?

Purchasing local food is the best and easiest choice

for minimizing global warming & other pollutants

by choosing local produce, you reduce:

fuel consumption

global warming pollution

help lift local agricultural communities, strengthen the local economy

&protect the environment

all while eating fresher, tastier fruits and veggies

when you combine all locally grown food,

Less CO2emissions are released in transport

than any one imported product

Next time you’re in the market consider:

How far has the fruit/veggie traveled to reach your plate?

How much energy and fossil fuels were spent to transport that product?

Look at the label on the product

Some markets support local growers by selling their products in store

To learn more visit the following helpful sites :

www.nrdc.org/foodmiles

www.localharvest.org