Is Your Produce More Well-Traveled Than You Are?

                   Did You Know?

• The average meal in the U.S. travels 1,500 miles before reaching your plate.
• Frozen peas require 150 percent more energy than fresh peas due to packaging and refrigeration.
• A head of lettuce traveling from California to North Carolina uses 36 times more fossil fuel energy in transport than it provides in food energy.
• Farmers selling produce locally can grow vegetables chosen for taste instead of varieties chosen for how well they travel.
• Farmers' markets enable growers to keep 80-90 cents per dollar spent by the consumer compared to 9 cents in traditional food markets.
• Produce not sold locally is often in transit or cold storage for days or weeks, and its nutritional value declines with time.

•  When you purchase locally grown produce, your money stays within your community.
• Http://www.eenorthcarolina.org/consumer.htm
  

              - These statistics supplied by the NC Office of Environmental Education