• HOME
• ALL THINGS PlacerGROWN

• FARMS, RANCHES AND FLOWERS
• CHRISTMAS TREES
• FIBER PRODUCERS
• MANDARIN ORCHARDS
• LIVESTOCK & MEAT PRODUCERS
• NURSERIES
• ORGANIC PRODUCERS
• WINERIES & VINEYARDS

• BED & BREAKFASTS
• FARMERS' MARKETS
• PRODUCE MARKETS
• RESTAURANTS

• GROUP VISITS & SCHOOL TO FARM TRIPS & ADVENTURES

• EVENTS
• HARVEST CALENDAR
• LINKS
• MAP
• RECIPES
• SHOP PlacerGROWN
• SPONSORS

Why Eat Local?

10 Reasons for the Fortunate

1. Taste the difference.
   At a farmers’ market, most local produce has been picked within 24 hours. It comes to your table ripe, fresh, and with its full flavor, unlike supermarket food that may have been picked weeks or months before. Close-to-home foods can also be grown for taste, rather than to withstand shipping or mechanical harvesting.
2. Meet your neighbors & farmers.
   Local eating is social. Studies show that people shopping at farmers’ markets have 10 times more conversations than their counterparts at the supermarket.
3. Get in touch with the seasons.
   When you eat locally, you eat what’s in season. You’ll remember that cherries are the taste of summer. Even in winter, comfort foods like squash soup and pancakes just make sense–a lot more sense than flavorless cherries from the other side of the world.
4. Discover new flavors.
   Ever tried Hoshigaki? How about jujubes, blue eggs, goat or Cara Cara oranges? These are just a few of the new flavors you can sample over a year of local eating. Even familiar foods become more interesting when you buy them from the farmer and hear their story. Count the types of pear offered at your supermarket. Maybe three? Small farms are keeping alive nearly 300 other varieties–while more than 2,000 more have been lost in our rush to sameness.
5. Explore your home.
   Visiting local farms is a way to be a tourist on your own home turf, with plenty of stops for snacks.
6. Save the world.
   A study in Iowa found that a regional diet consumed 17 times less oil and gas than a diet based on food shipped across the country.
7. Support small farms.
   We discovered that many people from all walks of life dream of working the land–maybe you do too. In areas with strong local markets, the family farm has been given new life.
8. Give back to the local economy.
   A US study tracked how much of the money spent at a local food business stayed in the local economy, and how many times it was reinvested. The total was almost twice the contribution of a dollar spent at a supermarket chain.
9. Be healthy.
   Eating from farmers’ markets and cooking from scratch makes you feel better; you are eating more vegetables and fewer processed products, with fewer additives. You also sample a wider variety of foods, and ate more fresh food at its nutritional peak.
10. Create memories.
    Making jam, eating fresh local food and drinking a bottle of local wine with a friend is a more lasting memory than the latest Hollywood blockbuster.