Find your local farm­ers market.

If you have a local farm­ers mar­ket this is one of the best places for inex­pen­sive fresh pro­duce. They are almost always less expen­sive than the gro­cery chains but I am sure this can vary. We have found that not only is our local farm­ers mar­ket less expen­sive, the pro­duce lasts longer. It is also impor­tant to sup­port local grow­ers and the local econ­omy. This in turn reduces emis­sions. No need to ship pears from Ecuador and warm the planet  in the process.

Buy organic, but don’t break the bank either. One way to do this is to buy only organic pro­duce that has an outer peel you eat such as apples, cher­ries, car­rots, broc­coli, etc.  Pro­duce such as avo­ca­dos, oranges, bananas, etc.that are peeled may be less affected by the chem­i­cals sprayed on them. Mind you I am not say­ing that non-organic is good, but when you are start­ing out and you are unsure about costs, play it safe until you know where your money is going.

Note: Always, always, wash your pro­duce before cut­ting or eat­ing, even if you are peel­ing it and it is organic. We use some green dish soap and a small brush to do this at the sink. Any­time you cut into an orange for exam­ple, your knife is car­ry­ing any­thing on the out­side of the peel through the inside. This is the stuff you are about to eat. It may seem like a pain but even the organic stuff should be washed. Just because it is organic doesn’t mean it is clean. Just because it looks clean, doesn’t mean it isnt cov­ered in chem­i­cals either.

On that note, we recently bought some oranges at the local gro­cery out of con­ve­nience. Did you know they now some­times add orange dye to cit­rus like oranges? WTH? Just to make it look pretty! Nice, real nice. We returned them and opted to wait for the farm­ers market.