How Eating Local Helps the Planet

By Amanda -

Most people are aware that the more local the food, the better. But do you understand why?  What’s so great about local, anyway? Besides how fresh and awesome tasting it is, local food has wonderful environmental implications. Local food is fresher, tastier, and kinder to Mother Earth!

Reduced Pollution & Carbon Emissions
Did you know that the average fresh food item on your dinner table probably travels approximately 1,500 miles before it reaches our plate? Fifteen-hundred miles. When you purchase locally grown foods, they don’t have to be trucked in from thousands of miles away – saving loads of fuel and reducing carbon emissions.

Here at The Produce Box, we source all of our products right here in North Carolina during the months of May to November. This means that every box of tasty, local produce that you purchase reduces your carbon footprint (as compared to buying supermarket tomatoes that were trucked in from California).

Reduced Chemicals
Additionally, many local farmers use sustainable farming and cultivation practices. At The Produce Box, we work with some local farmers who use low amounts of pesticides – or none at all! Small, local farmers are able to pay closer attention to their crops, which means that they don’t have to smother them in chemicals in order to reduce pest damage. Fewer pesticides on your produce not only means less chemicals in your body, but less chemicals leeching into the soil!

When you support The Produce Box, you support local farming in North Carolina. The more local our food supply, the smaller our environmental footprint. And for that the planet thanks us.

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