Easy ways to help you eat locally

If you can't grow your own food, you can be sure that someone near you is. When you sit down to dinner tonight, take a minute to consider how far your food traveled to get to your plate. Is your steak from Australia? Are your carrots from California? Experts say eating locally might make us healthier and safer... and it would be better for the environment, too. So support your local farmers by eating what's in season now.

Here's how:

• Subscribe to a CSA (for Community Supported Agriculture), and a local farm will prepare a box of fresh fruits and vegetables for you. Just swing by a pick-up location after work, or arrange for direct home delivery. See localharvest.org for a CSA near you. Also, be sure to check out their national list of restaurants, stores, and farmers markets carrying locally grown food.
  
• Take a sneak-peek at what it's like eating locally by visiting 100milediet.org.
• Get Inspired with tips, facts, and recipes for more than 100 varieties of fruits, veggies, herbs, and nuts in The Produce Bible (Stewart, Tabori & Chang: $29.95). It's the most comprehensive guide around.
  

When you buy locally, you also give those with local open space-farms and pastures-an economic reason to stay open and undeveloped, and open space can benefit us all.