Every day the choices we make affect our environment.  Many of us have started eating more organic food, purchasing organic cotton clothing, and buying sustainable harvested wood products.  By making these choices, we hope we are living in a more sustainable way and are having a smaller impact on our ecosystem.  One of our most frequent purchases is food.  Most of us eat at least three times a day, every day.  With historically cheap fuel costs, the ever consolidating food industry has evolved so that most of the food we consume comes from far away farms.  According to the Worldwatch Institute, the average food item we eat travels 1500 - 2000 miles.  The average piece of produce we eat travels 2500-4000 miles.  The transportation and environmental impact of eating food  from far away places is significant.   The average meal, compared to an entirely local meal, uses up to 17 times more petroleum products and increases carbon dioxide emissions by the same amount.

You can have a smaller footprint by consciously choosing more locally grown foods.  Vermont is a fantastic state for local food consumption.  You can find local wheat, corn, rye, cheese, yogurt, milk, butter, eggs, meat, mushrooms, numerous vegetables, and many fruits.  I encourage you to take the Eat Local Challenge with me this August and eat primarily if not only local food grown within a 100 miles of your home.  Learn more and sign-up at www.eatlocalvt.org.