By selecting only USA-grown fruits and vegetables, including Florida's Natural® Brand juices, you are taking steps to help protect animals and plants everywhere.

Not only does buying local help improve your health, it also helps protect a variety of animals and plants. Buying more locally-grown fruits and vegetables can have a healthy impact on our planet, too.

Here are two important ways buying USA-grown fruits and vegetables helps the earth:

1. Fewer Miles of Travel = Fewer Fossil Fuels Used.

Buying from local farms often reduces the distance that fruits and vegetables have to travel. Reducing the amount of food shipped here from China or South American countries decreases our use of fossil fuels. The numbers speak for themselves: some fruit travels more 7,000 miles to get here from Chile. Any fruit from the United States will travel less than that.

2. Safer U.S. Farming Techniques Help Birds.

A lot of the birds you see at your bird feeder migrate to Central and South America in the winter. Unfortunately, the farms in these countries are more hazardous to these birds than ones in the United States. Chemicals banned from use in the United States are still being used in some countries. Migratory songbird populations, for example, have been declining steadily in recent years due to this problem.

How can you make a difference and purchase more USA-grown fruits and vegetables? Buying from farmers' markets and farming co-ops are just two of the ways you can purchase more produce from USA farms. In addition, check the fruit and vegetable labels in your grocery store, and select only those items that are labeled a "Product of USA."

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