Choosing to eat locally grown food is a simple way to reduce your carbon footprint. Much of the food found in large grocery stores have traveled thousands of miles to end up on the store shelf. Those ripe tomatoes? They arrived last week on a semi truck from California. The oranges? Shipped in yesterday on a train from Florida. The avocados arrived on a semi truck from Central America two week sago. All this moving food cross-country, and sometimes cross-continent, translates into big carbon emissions.

In a city like Ann Arbor, Michigan, it is easy to find locally grown foods. The farmer’s market held every Saturday in downtown Ann Arbor is the perfect place to stock up on fruits and vegetables grown on area farms. Not only are you helping the environment by shopping for local foods, but you’re also helping the area economy by supporting small, locally owned, businesses.

Food co-ops are another good place to search out local foods at a fair price. Co-ops buy in bulk for a cost savings, and then split the products between the members. There are several co-ops in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti offering healthy locally grown food. Area farms sell strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, pumpkins and apples during harvest time. You can either pick them yourself, if you’d like.

Ann Arbor’s pleasant summers offer ample opportunity for gardeners to flex their green thumbs. Even city dwellers and those living in condos or houses on smaller plots of land can garden successfully. Bountiful crops don’t necessarily need lots of acreage to flourish. Tomatoes can be planted in tubs on Ann Arbor condominium balcony, and small plots of vegetables and herbs area easy to grow in your Ann Arbor home’s backyard. Really tight on space? Plant a mini herb garden in a small container on your kitchen windowsill, where it will be handy the next time you whip up a batch of pasta with marinara.

Ann Arbor offers a bounty of local foods, from farmer’s fields to farmer’s markets, to your own backyard. Enjoy knowing you’re helping the earth while you enjoy Michigan’s bountiful produce.