Buying produce directly from local farms is a great way to eat healthy foods that you can trust. Improving the ability to get local, fresh produce and foods goes hand in hand with living a healthier lifestyle.
Feeling good about the food you eat means getting emotional, mental, and physical satisfaction from the fresh food and produce you’re eating from farmers through The Produce Box. As much as a healthy, physical appearance matters, how you feel on the inside matters just as much. What are some ways you can feel good by eating local and healthy?
1) It Improves Your Mood and Energy Levels
Eating healthy directly affects how you feel and how your body functions. Improving your diet may help improve your mood and give you a natural boost of energy, unlike other options like caffeine that leave you with a crash later. The mood boost and heightened energy could be a large benefit to people trying to keep up a busy schedule with work, home-life, or other daily activities.
2) It Directly Supports Those In Your Community
Buying from local farmers and businesses is a great way to overall feel better about your purchases. It’s easy to want to turn to large, corporate stores and businesses for everyday needs, but farmers and small businesses benefit more and feel more appreciation when you support them. Rather than feeling like you’re one-of-a-million customers shopping somewhere, it’s nice to feel like you’re one-of-a-hundred that help keep a business going. Your community ends up feeling the benefits of local support, which in turn trickles down to you.
3) It’s Helping the Environment
When you choose to shop local from farmers and farmer’s markets, you’re actually helping reduce a large carbon footprint that is created through food transportation. For example, if you think about where most avocados come from, Mexico, you can also think about how much traveling is done on a daily and weekly basis to get those avocados to stores across the country. Buying directly from the source cuts down almost all of the transportation needed to get the food from farm to table.
4) You’re Eating Food You Can Trust
It’s not uncommon to question where the food you eat comes from, and consumers have been more focused on the source of their purchases in the last few years. Buying produce from the store opens up the possibility that you’re eating foods that were treated with pesticides and other chemicals used to keep the produce fresh. Buying directly from farmers and other sources are better ways to avoid eating treated foods because most local farmers are not using chemicals to treat their crops.
5) It Offers Improved Nutrition
Buying from the source is a great way to ensure you’re receiving the best nutrients from the food you eat. Local farmers are extremely reliant on natural farming and following produce seasons rather than using chemicals to grow produce out-of-season. The biggest benefit to this, although you aren’t able to eat all of your favorite produce year-round, is eating produce that has all of its natural nutrition.
At The Produce Box, we strive to give you the best locally grown produce, dairy, meat, and other local artisan items straight from their source to your door. Supporting The Produce Box means supporting local farmers and communities across North Carolina, but it also means supporting yourself. We hope you have felt or will get to feel these benefits by eating local, healthy foods!