08 May The community, the environment, and your taste buds will thank you.

The sun is shining, kids are laughing, and you’re biting into the sweetest, crispest apple you’ve ever tasted – you can’t deny the farmer’s market is one of the most enjoyable times of the week. It almost makes you wonder why you ever decided to step inside a cold and boring grocery store instead of stepping outside for some fresh air, vitamin D, and delicious produce from Farmer Joe down the road.

There’s a reason you start craving fruits and veggies more after tasting that super crisp apple. Most produce you get from a chain grocery store is picked before it’s fully ripe, gassed to stimulate ripeness, and shipped to you from thousands of miles away. At the farmer’s market, your neighborhood farmer picked your produce at peak freshness right before he or she brought it down the road to you. The difference is simple and delicious, and the farmers work careful and hard for that result — themes Texas Farm Girl teaches you a lot about.

And your taste buds aren’t the only thing to benefit from locally grown food; the environment could use a break from chain stores’ processes as well. Transporting produce across states and countries emits one billion metric tons of carbon-dioxide into the environment every year. Additionally, the EPA estimated that 90 percent of the 11.9 million tons of plastic produced to package this food went to a landfill. This is detrimental to our environment, and in turn, detrimental to our health, as smog resulted from these trucks and locomotives are responsible for a majority of the cancer threat air pollution has created in urban areas.

Statistics aside, there’s nothing wrong with opting for cheap and convenient. But when you have the option, give your local farmer’s a try. But when you have the option, give your local farmers a try. The community, the environment, and your taste buds will thank you.