The Nature Conservancy. Protecting nature. Preserving life.™

We're celebrating local chefs and local food this Earth Day

• In the US, the average grocery store's produce travels nearly 1,500 miles between the farm where it was grown and your refrigerator. Eating local reduces your carbon footprint and supports your local economy.

For Earth Day (April 22), four well-known locavore chefs from around the state - Cassie Parsons, Amy Torniquist, Andrea Reusing and Laurey Masterton - are helping us call attention to the importance of eating locally by sharing their favorite picnic recipes. We hope this will inspire you to have your own picnic with local foods. TNC is attempting to have the world's largest picnic - if you are interested in participating please see our Picnic for the Planet website.

Click here to download a printable version of our NC chef picnic recipes.

We want to hear from you!

Post your favorite picnic recipes, tell us what you think of our chef recipes and share pictures of yourself having an Earth Day picnic. Link to Facebook. You can also email your pictures to dcrane@tnc.org.