Buy Local and Green Up Your Meals
Posted by Chad Norman August 8th, 2007 .If you’re looking for a tasty way to reduce your impact, try stocking up on food from local sources. Other than cutting back on meat consumption, this is the easiest way to green up your meals - and support local farmers. Treehugger.com says it best:
Buying seasonal, local food is a boon for the environment for a lot of reasons. Since most food travels many miles to reach your table (1,500 miles, on average), locally sourced food cuts back on the climate-change impacts of transportation. Local food also generally uses less packaging, is fresher and tastier, and comes in more varieties. It also supports small local growers and lets them get more for their produce by not having to spend so much on packing, processing, refrigeration, marketing, and shipping.
So while adhering to the 100-mile diet might be impossible, you can certainly make an impact by visiting one of more than 10 local farmers markets, checking out a local specialty grower, or stopping by one of the regular roadside stands.
Check out our expanding list, and add to it in the comments.
- Charleston Farmer’s Market
- Mount Pleasant Farmer’s Market
- North Charleston/Hanahan Farmer’s Market
- Goose Creek Farmer’s Market
- Corners Farmer’s Market, Moncks Corner
- Summerville Farmers Market
- Walterboro Farmers Market
- Oakbrook Farmers Market (Summerville)
- James Island Presbyterian Church Farmers Market
- St. Stephens Farmers Market
- Boone Hall Plantation
- Boone Hall Farms
- Sweet Bay Farm
- Owl’s Nest Plantation
- Full Circle Organic (CSA)
- Ruke’s Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Stand, Mount Pleasant’s Holy Trinity A.M.E. Church on Mathis Ferry Road
- Brother George’s Fresh Fruits and Vegetables, Rivers Avenue
- Lora Hucks Fresh Fruits and Vegetables, Folly Road
- Bobby Hucks Fresh Fruits and Vegetables, Ladson
- Blue Dog Farms
We will be creating a Go Green Map based on this info soon, so if you know of any additional locations where local food can be purchased, please let us know in the comments.


Be aware that not all of the Charleston area farmer’s markets sell local food; in fact, last year they operated on a 50 percent rule. I mentioned this on my blog, which has a link to the P & C story about this. See http://bellascribe.com/blog/2006/09/09/to-market-to-market/.
Keep up the good work.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
by Barabara Kingsolver
w/ essays throughout by her oldest daughter Camille and her husband Steven L. Hopp
This book was loaned to me a few short months ago when it first came out. I purchased my own copy about half way through so I could loan it around and spread the word. If nothing else, it helps raise awareness of the world around us. It has helped me keep the concept of green living as part of my daily decision making.