How does the concept of FOOD MILES affect a green lifestyle?
Answer:
nfthnhmnty makes some valid points.
What he misses is that by keeping your food grown locally it keeps the money in your locality. It helps create wealth in your town/city which then feeds back into new businesses. Produce sold in this way is usually by the producer. There are obvious advantages in that, you can question and make special requests. It also provides local employment, which feeds back into the system. A network develops.
It also means that your food is picked and should be to the plate more quickly. It is feasible to grow some specialist products on a much smaller scale when this is done locally. Rather than controlled by large supermarkets.
Produce in Season is generally a lot cheaper when grown locally. Particularly good for Box Schemes. Packaging - the further it has to travel the more packaging. you will need. You can just have a cotton bag or no bag at all.
First off I would suggest checking out a book like "Shopping With A Conscience" or something similar for a more in-depth and better researched presentation of the facts.
The concept of 'food miles' is extremely important to living a green lifestyle- although it's not always a clear-cut choice to pick local food all of the time. Shipping food uses up gas and produces carbon dioxide just like other forms of vehicular transportation so it can be a good idea to look into farmers markets, or if you're lucky enough, farm collectives that you can invest in to get periodic deliveries. It's also been suggested that eating closer to home imparts more of a sense of connection, both with the food and the people growing it, contributing to the sense of community and increasing the accountability of the people distributing it.
The flip-side is that some things simply don't grow well in certain climates, and other crops may be important to the economic development/identity of other areas, so sometimes it's good to import foods.
Simply checking where the foods in your local grocery store can be a real eye-opener, and sometimes all it takes is a quick glance to distinguish between a locally grown choice and something from across the country. Obviously things vary from place to place, but simply trying to make educated choices is the best first step. to check out what's available in your area go to http://www.localharvest.org/. Hope this helps!
It makes sense to buy locally. The added cost of transporting foods is not only the cost of fuel but the cost of the vehicle, the cost to the atmosphere in pollutants and the engineering costs of keeping foods fresh as they are transported to a different hemisphere.
Shopping locally means that you as the consumer does not consume fuel to travel across town to get an apple, or a shirt, or a pair of shoes. Shop locally.
The amount of miles your food travels to your table does affect the environment.a lot. The average distance for most items is around 1000 miles! Just figuring the amount of diesel fuel needed by trucks to haul food that far is staggering.
(not to mention jet fuel or diesel for trains)
Eating locally grown and produced foods cuts down on emmissions and helps keep local farmers in business.
You may have to sacrifice some things in your diet, or at least make them special occasion treats.
I read a book called Plenty, it was about the 100 mile diet, and very informative. I wish that eating locally was easier. Since reading the book, I look to see where the food was grown and don't get food not grown in the continental U.S.
Here in Baja California much of our food is grown locally, excellent organically grown vegetables from the Valle Guadalupe. Good wines from the vineyards 30 miles away. There is a Monday market walking distance from my house. The Border at San Ysidro has become such a nightmare of waiting more than two hours at idle, its a waste of fuel and puts tons of pollutants in the air, many people simply don't cross or limit the trips to once a month. or less. Greener meals are posssible.
The answers post by the user, for information only, FunQA.com does not guarantee the right.
More Questions and Answers: