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by Brian Halweil on July 23, 2007
At a potluck dinner last night, in the midst of local skirt steak, Montauk scallops, a frittata made with the year’s first potatoes, and a salad made with the year’s first tomatoes, the conversation naturally turned to the origin of our foods. The guests included a farmer, two winemakers, and a fisherman, as well as a nurse, several writers, and others who don’t directly make their living from food, but were happy to speak about it.
More than ever, it seems, people are talking about where their food comes from. It must have something to do with the recent news about contaminated food imported from China and other nations whose food safety laws seem equally porous. Food scares always push people toward farmers markets and more home-cooked fare made with fresh ingredients.
In North Carolina, concerned citizens recently issued a grassroots call for food labeling. Finally, there may be enough political will to fight opposition from international food makers and pass country-of-origin-labeling laws that, in the words of a recent New York Times op-ed, let Americans consumers “know where their food comes from before popping it into their mouths.”
But as my dining companions made clear, knowing where your food was grown is only the beginning. At a time when our food travels farther than ever before, eating local is not just about geography—it’s about the end of “anonymous food.” It’s about asking how our food was raised, who raised it, and what impact it had on the landscape. Remember, food is still our most intimate connection to the soil and water around us.
Consider two recent—and creative—“eat local” campaigns. The first was launched by the Center for a New American Dream as part of their six-month Carbon Conscious Consumer (C3) campaign. “Big changes start with small steps” is the campaign’s tagline, and this month’s goal is to buy one pound of locally grown food each week. Future months will encourage people to cold wash their clothes and dishes, reduce their junk mail, and carve out one car-free day a week.
And now, Bon Appetit restaurant company has built on its successful Eat Local Challenge to introduce a low-carbon diet at its 400 cafes at universities and corporate campuses in 28 U.S. states. The chain plans to reduce its use of beef by 25 percent, to source all meat and poultry and nearly all fruits and vegetables from North America, to use seasonal local produce as a first preference and tropical fruits only as “special occasion” ingredients, and to serve only domestic bottled water and reduce waste from the plastic containers.
Perhaps the best evidence of this growing curiosity about how much energy it takes to move our food around is the fact that eating local has even invited a backlash in form of disparaging “don’t buy local” stories from the New York Times and studies from concerned New Zealand shepherds illustrating that, despite the long-distance haul, New Zealand lamb requires less energy to produce than American or European lamb because of the island’s balmy climate and extensive pastures.
According to Rich Pirog of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, “It’s entirely possible that under certain systems or certain constraints the local is going to be less efficient than the national or even global food system in terms of energy and greenhouse gas use.” Pirog pioneered much of the thinking on food miles a few years ago, showing that the mode of conveyance makes a huge difference (potatoes shipped by rail from Idaho to New York might be less polluting than Maine potatoes delivered via 18-wheeler truck). “Food miles are a great indicator of localness, but they aren’t necessarily the best indicator of energy use,” he concludes.
But localness has other advantages even when it isn’t the most energy efficient. Eating local keeps money in the local economy, helps preserve farmland, and usually means tastier food. In the midst of food safety crises, eating local also brings a certain peace of mind because the shopper can get much more information about what they are actually buying.
For those shoppers who are most concerned about energy use, though, here are some simple rules of thumb:
Shop nearby if you can—driving long-distance to a farmers market isn’t doing anyone any favors. Even better, try to get your local supermarket to host a farmers market in its parking lot.
Eat whole, unprocessed foods. The energy use and greenhouse gas emissions skyrocket for canning, freezing, and other processing, and processed foods require more energy to ship.
Eat seasonally. Your local tomato grower might have to drive love apples to market in August, but at least you won’t be getting them flown in from Holland in December.
And, finally, ask questions. Because the more we ask, the better our food seems to get.
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Not only food labeling is
Even now I think it's too
Even now I think it's too late to think about that, bad food is still in our stores and unfortunately it gives us no choice but to buy it and that's because we don't have any alternative products. I think this is a social problem and it needs to be solved as quick as possible because more and more people get sick every year and the worse thing is that they ignore that.
Chondroitin sulfate
viability of fresh,local,sustainable....
I wish all those who promote sustainable food would think harder and go deeper. It sounds so great but it really doesn't play out that way. To return my city, toronto, to a small local shop system selling only local sustainable food would be absolutely impossible. For one thing, we are one of the most multicultural cities in the world and thus we have people who want foods from their homelands and we can't possibly make them available on a home grown basis.
Take spices without which alot of food would be inedible. Most spices are not local and have to come long distances. The history of food and cooking is based on the global interchange of food and spices. Marco Polo was the first global food traveller, Christopher Columbus another. Much of the inspiration for writing about food comes from the discovery of the new taste, the new vegetable.. As much as anything else, food is about discovery. The notion of returning to growing and eating food as we did when far less was available seems ridiculous.
HellaD says they buy turmeric from a known source in Burma and that the are helping the local economy. True. That's the rationale for globalism. The fact that I buy little green beans from Kenya is v. helpful to the Kenyan economy.
Finally, there is an air of sanctimony about fresh, local, sustainable- emanating from California where food prigs abound. To us in Toronto howev er, California is the biggest industrial food bully on the block. The powerful California growers are driving Ontario strawberry growers out of business because they demand year round contracts. If Toronto supermarkets, and most people shop in supermarkets, , won't buy summer strawberries from California then California won't supply us with oranges and lemons all winter etc.
ginamallet.com
local, organic and sustainable
I wish all those who promote sustainable food would think harder and go deeper. It sounds so great but it really doesn't play out that way. To return my city, toronto, back to a small local shop system selling only local sustainable food would be absolutely impossible. For one thing, we are one of the most multicultural cities in the world and thus we have people who want foods from their homelands and we can't possibly make them available on a home grown basis.
Take spices without which alot of food would be inedible. Most spices are not local and have to come long distances. The history of food and cooking is based on the global interchange of food and spices. Marco Polo was the first global food traveller, Christopher Columbus another. Much of the inspiration for writing about food comes from the discovery of the new taste, the new vegetable.. As much as anything else, food is about discovery. The notion of returning to growing and eating food as we did when far less was available seems ridiculous.
HellaD says they buy turmeric from a known source in Burma and that the are helping the local economy. True. That's the rationale for globalism. The fact that I buy little green beans from Kenya is v. helpful to the Kenyan economy.
Finally, there is an air of sanctimony about fresh, local, sustainable- emanating from California where food prigs abound. To us in Toronto howev er, California is the biggest industrial food bully on the block. The powerful California growers are driving Ontario strawberry growers out of business because they demand year round contracts. If Toronto supermarkets, and most people shop in supermarkets, , won't buy summer strawberries from California then California won't supply us with oranges and lemons all winter etc.
ginamallet.com
local and organic and sustainable
Right now local is the hot buzz word. Keep the focus. What good is local if it's chemically grown. Then local means local ground water pollution, local cancer, local birth defects. Local and organic and sustainable is absolutely doable and economically viable. It is important to remember to ask how your food was raised and what impact it had on the environment. Being local doesn't make it exempt. Chemical agriculture is toxic whether it's local or distant.
Food Miles etc
I like what you have to say in your article and I am glad that you mention "No more anonymous food."
I definitely agree that it is important to eat locally but as a chef I also worry that human-kind will follow our pre-established habit of going overboard in what we do instead of having common sense about it.
In this way I think saying "No More Anonymous Food" might be a good partner to "Eat Local".
There are certain things that you might not be able to get locally--spices for example. Turmeric is one spice that is vital in my diet and I doubt it grows locally. But in this case I have a contact in Myanmar (Burma) who grows, drys and grinds it for me. I therefore know who I am getting my turmeric from and I am able to support their local economy as well.
I also worry about all these small groups around the world who have manged to find alternate ways of surviving in rainforests (for example) than going along with the logging. There are local people growing ngali nuts in the Soloman Islands and are selling the oil to people in New Zealand and UK for example and are able to continue their environmentally helpful way of living.
As a race humanity needs to be able to walk the middle line and not go overboard too much to one side or another. We need to be sensible, not just caught up in a fad. Thanks so much for your article.
www.helladelicious.com
I agree - local foods are best
Just to add a bit here. Consumers have the ability to change the behavior of their local supermarkets -- as well as to choose to purchase locally grown food on their own.
A couple good resources are:
Local Food Directories - a database of local growers and CSA's where local people can buy local produce.
localharvest.org - A non-profit which has a similar database with local food options for consumers.
21st-century-citizen.com - A useful site with more information on local food options.
Thanks for increasing awareness of local food options!