There’s a common misconception that eating healthily is more expensive than eating rubbish. This is mainly the case when fruit and vegetables in particular are bought out of season and outside the local area.

The cost of packaging, transportation and other overheads means the price of produce can be a lot higher when you shop in a supermarket. But if you don’t have a local farmers’ market in your local town or village, finding responsibly sourced local meat and veg isn’t always easy.

BigBarn calls itself UKs no.1 local food website, and is dedicated to helping you find where you can buy food nearer you that’s both seasonal and locally sourced.

Type in your postcode and the site will bring up all local producers in your area, allowing you to order directly from the online marketplace, or locate your nearest markets so you can buy in the real world. If you order online, you can order from any of the producers, so you’ll need to select carefully if you want to stick to locally produced goods.

It’s not just about making it easier for you to shop either. The website aims to reduce the trend for very low-priced product, which does farmers and producers out of a profit. By selling direct without the worries of travelling and packaging costs, they can keep their costs low and their profits higher.

A similar site in the US is Local Harvest, which includes similar elements. Let us know if you have any other great local food stores online. We’ll compile the best ones into a guide to local food online for you.

Oh, and if you have any thoughts over the tricky issue of “greenwashing” when it comes to locally sourced food (is it actually better for the environment to buy lamb from New Zealand?), drop us a comment.

Image: USDAgov

 What began over three decades ago with 12 farmers in a parking lot on 59th Street and 2nd Avenue in Manhattan has now grown to become the largest and most diverse outdoor urban farmers market network in the country, nearly doubling in eight years from 28 locations in 2002 to 50 today, with over 200 family farms and fishermen participating, and over 30,000 acres of farmland protected from development.

This unique relationship between farmers and city residents has not only changed the face of regional agriculture, it has also revitalized rural communities and urban spaces, improved consumer health, provided fresh and nutritious food to those most in need, encouraged crop diversity, educated school children and city residents about the importance of regional agriculture, inspired new culinary trends, and influenced chefs and eaters in one of the culinary capitals in the world.

Each of the NYC markets strives to be an anchor to their community providing not only fresh, locally-grown food, but a safe and fun gathering place were neighbors can come together to talk to farmers, share recipes, watch a cooking demonstration, take a tour with a chef and learn about local agriculture.

To find your nearest Greenmarket in Manhattan or Brooklyn click here.

One such newcomer is Farm Direct, which set up shop in Islington in the Autumn. The company delivers fresh produce to several North London postcodes, working with around 20 different farms no further than 125 miles outside London. It has a small depot open to passing customers near Highbury Fields, but most orders are taken online  and delivered directly to people’s homes.

Although only five months old, there’s been a great response from local shoppers so far, revealing a healthy appetite for locally sourced food. Farm Direct founder Robert Barker attributes this to the difficulty that Londoners have in accessing local produce, which is certainly a tricky task if you’re not keen on paying above the odds in supermarkets or getting up at the crack of dawn to visit farmers’ markets. The box scheme makes it far easier to fit local food into daily life, and low overhead and transport costs keep prices very reasonable.

Another attraction of Barkers’ products is their freshness, which also compares favourably with supermarkets. “I must have had at least a dozen Mums who delight that their children love our Chegworth apples”, he told us. “food that has not travelled a long way will have a better chance of tasting delicious.” He added that “people want to be able to connect with their food a bit more: intuitively it makes sense to know not only where your food comes from, but who actually produced it — in the age of the internet, that should be possible.”

Farm Direct offers more than just veggies, with a selection of meat and game, seasonal fruit and veg, eggs, pies, bakery,  juices and a selection of cheeses; most products are either organic or unsprayed. As with all locally-produced food, the weather has a massive impact on what’s good to eat when, and this year’s unusually hard winter has certainly had an impact on some crops.

However, local sourcing brings some real surprises, and as Barker explained, a ‘bad’ winter does not have to mean a bad haul: Jerusalem artichoke and beetroot are thriving at the moment, producing some beautiful crops, and on the meat side, mutton is at its best.  For many customers, it’s this unpredictable nature of local food shopping that makes it so addictive.

Image: Dichohecho

But does cutting costs have to mean cutting out traditionally-grown food that’s native to your own area? Put that way, it sounds ridiculous, and fortunately it is quite possible to find honestly produced food at honest prices. The two main obstacles are knowing where to find it, and taking time to prepare it economically. Here are some tips on cost-effective organic and local shopping, for financial, personal and environmental health.

Know what’s in season
By sticking to products that are in season, you’ll be able to find them cheaper and tastier whether you go for organic or not. Keep a close eye on Eat the Seasons until you start to get an instinctive idea of what you should be expecting to eat as the seasons turn. If you’re already ordering direct from a box scheme or visit a farmers’ market, you’ll already have a bit of a feel for this.

Buy Direct
While supermarkets may charge a lot for organic and local produce, the best way to get them is direct from the growers. Nobody can sniff at the £12-25 price tag on a weekly box that’s stuffed full of ripe organic produce, delivered to you from a neighbouring farm. It’s a great way to introduce variety into your diet and to get into more seasonal eating. It also helps the producers, who get a fairer deal through these schemes than when dealing with larger stores.

Brush up on your cooking
The inevitable comeback to all of this advice is that it’s not always practical to cook meals from scratch, even if ordering organic ingredients via box schemes is affordable. There’s no easy answer to that one, other than stressing that if you really want to do it, make the time to get your cooking up to scratch so that putting together a delicious supper made from fresh local produce soon becomes second nature. If your confidence is shaky, you might want to enrol in a class, but it’s also worth making meals in bulk portions so you don’t have to start again every day.

Some organic is better than no organic
If a box scheme isn’t for you and you don’t want to pay the premium for organic all the time, it’s worth knowing that some foods are more likely to be coated in pesticides than others, so you may at least want to go organic when you buy them. This list is especially helpful, and explains how peaches are more likely to be heavily treated than onions.

Again, if you can’t afford organic, having an idea what’s in seasons will at least mean the veg you do buy in the shops is more likely to be sourced locally, but keep an eye on labels for those sneaky imports!

Image: Wordridden