Food Miles Mistake

[ca2devri]

A friend sent me this article and I almost totally disagree with the writer. Interested to see how others would respond.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/129855.html

Chris

[snoozy]

Certainly the issue is complex. But there are 2 things which are not addressed in the article: the loss of food value and quality when you have to harvest before a food item is actually ripe, and the fact that if you are using up petroleum to ship foods which are out of season/locale, you are reducing the petroleum available for purposes which cannot be substituted.

There is also the matter of maybe our body is biologically designed to eat food in season -- starchier veggies in winter when we need to keep warm, lighter greens when we don't, etc.

[mistletoad]

I am in no position to argue with the figures given as I have conducted no studies of my own, BUT I would strongly disagree that eating locally grown produce in season is a die-hard approach. I also disagree with the premise that "Food miles advocates fail to grasp the simple idea that food should be grown where it is most economically advantageous to do so." - I understand fully the position given, but it is too simple.

I believe that eating locally builds stable communities and stronger nations - it may be cheaper to rely on other countries for our food, but a strong nation should be self reliant in this area. If the UK outlawed all dairy cows on the grounds that New Zealand can produce milk more efficiently, what does it do when New Zealand decides it no longer wishes to sell to the UK? Maintaining dairy herds in the UK is a much more prudent approach IMO.

[chickenista]

Hmmm. Some good points, kinda.
Then I saw the title of his book!! hahahahahaaaa.. oh, how sad. "... the scientific and moral case for the biotech revolution"
As far as the article...
I do agree that some folks are just fanatical about it and tend to be a bit rabid, but then again, there are rabid folks on lots of subjects. I DO agree with the suggestions laid out by NASIS that he quotes in the article.
I try to eat as seasonal as I can without driving myself nuts. Sometimes I like a banana though. And DH will not eat a taco salad without a tomato on it. So, we do some purchasing of transported foods... the tomato thing we can tackle when we get a greenhouse, but then we will light it..so.....
I try to do as much as I can here and will try to do more. I am not going to eat only local etc... It is a modern age and I will enjoy the benefits of such things.
He also strikes me as a spoiled city dweller.... so ptfffffft!

[gone-a-milkin]

Lets also not forget things like droughts and other severe weather that can impact the availability of New Zealands milk supply, etc..

These super-rabid "foodie" type articles are frustrating to me. They make it sound so simple, and it is NOT.

[Fonzie]

Originally Posted by mistletoad

I believe that eating locally builds stable communities and stronger nations - it may be cheaper to rely on other countries for our food, but a strong nation should be self reliant in this area. If the UK outlawed all dairy cows on the grounds that New Zealand can produce milk more efficiently, what does it do when New Zealand decides it no longer wishes to sell to the UK? Maintaining dairy herds in the UK is a much more prudent approach IMO.

You're absolutely correct. It's no accident that the Japanese subsidize rice production in their country. Rice to the Japanese is much too important as a food source, and also rice is much too important culturally, to rely on much cheaper rice imports.

[mnn2501]

After reading the article, it reminds me of the old saying "figures don't lie, but liars can figure". The article (and the study its based on) is slanted towards big agriculture using non-sustainable methods ie their stats on greenhouse gas emmisions for the growing of food. Personally (and I am a gardner not a farmer) the only time I use greenhouse gases in the production of my food is when I till the garden in the fall and spring. I don't use commercial fertilizers, I grow organically and I use compost that I make myself out of lawn and garden waste, food scraps, etc. I also harvest by hand. During the spring/summer/fall we almost never buy produce, we instead harvest what we eat and we eat it in season. America's eating habits and thought processes would have to change and it wouldn;t be easy to begin with but we could go organic with our food supplies -- never happen cause there's no corporate money in it, but we could if we wanted to and understood the food supply (which most city-folk don;t)

The idea that every type of fruit and veggie should be available 12 months a year is another thing the article is based upon. Bananas may grow best in Costa Rica, but my neighbor here in Texas grows them too, he harvests over about a month long period every year and while there is added care to winter them here, its not that expensive (he covers the plants with leaves and plastic). I grow (for example) Tomatoes, now being in Texas I have a longer harvest period than most do, but its still only a few months out of the year that I have fresh tomatoes, I have canned the rest of the year -- I won't say I have never bought a tomato in the store during off season, but I certainly don't have to. Someone that understands gardening knows that if you plan well you can have something ripening spring, summer and fall -- but it will be different things, there are cool weather crops and warm weather crops.
The idea that you must be able to get vine ripened tomatoes in January in Minnesota is the kind of thing this article assumes and while Americans have come to expect it, the idea itself is not really a viable one with fuel so high in cost not to mention petroleum based fertilizers and greenhouse gas emmisions.

Over all I must reject the artcle as being misguided an misleading.

[Nina]

I've heard too much about the bad science of the global warming scare. When I was a kid, they all thought we were entering another ice age. This article seems more reasonable... http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=59319

[mnn2501]

Originally Posted by Nina

I've heard too much about the bad science of the global warming scare. When I was a kid, they all thought we were entering another ice age. This article seems more reasonable... http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=59319

Not exactly an unbiased news source, but I agree to a point, I don't think its as 'doom and gloom' as many people believe it is. But I also believe in being a good steward of what God has given us, I also believe we need to leave our children and grandchildren a better ecosystem than our parents left us (i'm a child of the 50's and 60's) where Lake Erie actually caught fire and they were doing nuclear testing in the SW U.S.

[rambler]

I don't understand why we need an either or situation.

Our current deal, where both local and commerccial foods are available, seems best.

Local only deals - you get to run out of food in a bad weather situation.

Hauled in only deals - the China Meleme (sp?) protirn additive deal creeps into the food supply.

Having both avenues available is by far the best, & keeps some checks & balances on both. There should be no need to eliminate either way, and I am suspicious of anyone who thinks only one way is best.

--->Paul

[moongirl]

Originally Posted by snoozy

Certainly the issue is complex. But there are 2 things which are not addressed in the article: the loss of food value and quality when you have to harvest before a food item is actually ripe, and the fact that if you are using up petroleum to ship foods which are out of season/locale, you are reducing the petroleum available for purposes which cannot be substituted.

There is also the matter of maybe our body is biologically designed to eat food in season -- starchier veggies in winter when we need to keep warm, lighter greens when we don't, etc.

You summed it up very well!

[Terri]

Both are correct.

I love eating fresh grapes in the winter (in Kansas) and it is also very good for me.

And, there IS more petroleum and such involved.

Fresh picked tastes better, and is better for you, but there is NO! fresh fruit locally produced here in the winter.

[mnn2501]

Originally Posted by Terri

Fresh picked tastes better, and is better for you, but there is NO! fresh fruit locally produced here in the winter.

Thats where canning and freezing comes in, I'll put the nutritional value of my: fresh, home grown, picked when its ripe, canned fruit up against the; picked before its ripe, shipped a couple thousand miles, gassed to force it to ripen, then sitting in the warehouse and grocery store for weeks, "fresh fruit" any day.

There can be both, but what most people call "fresh fruit" ain't that fresh.

[Terri]

Originally Posted by mnn2501

Thats where canning and freezing comes in, I'll put the nutritional value of my: fresh, home grown, picked when its ripe, canned fruit up against the; picked before its ripe, shipped a couple thousand miles, gassed to force it to ripen, then sitting in the warehouse and grocery store for weeks, "fresh fruit" any day.

There can be both, but what most people call "fresh fruit" ain't that fresh.

Yeah, but you live in a warmer area. Can you imagine not having a salad for 6 months?

Life for 6 months without a bite of anything raw and fresh would be AWFULL! No salad, no raw fruit, and the grocery stores are groaning with the produce.

Nope. I will continue to eat grapes in the winter. Also salad: perhaps in texas the lettuce can be stored until there is new lettuce available, but not here. We have already had our killing frost, with some protection seeds can sprout in 5 months, and then the leaves have to be big enough to pick.

[mnn2501]

Originally Posted by Terri

Life for 6 months without a bite of anything raw and fresh would be AWFULL! No salad, no raw fruit, and the grocery stores are groaning with the produce.
.

I'm certainly not telling anyone not to buy produce in the winter, nor can I say I have never bought it either. What I am saying is that we don't NEED to. Its only been the last century that its been avalable

BTW: I grow lettuce indoors under grow lights all winter long - I'm talking about real lettuce, not the iceberg that has all the nutritional value of water. I also sprout wheat and beans year round (excellant source of vitamins and a great addition to a salad)

[MariaAZ]

I agree with the sentiment that this isn't an "either/or" situation. Living in an arid, high population area (3 million plus in the Valley) the available agricultural lands simply cannot support the entire food needs of our area. Not to mention water; we are in something like the 14th year of drought and although we had a very wet year (by our standards) and the reservoirs are now in good shape, all crops grown here have to be irrigated with the same water sources we use for drinking. We could expand our definition of "local" to outlying areas, but the water situation is exactly the same; we have a finite, unpredictable supply that is increasingly becoming an issue of contention as various interests compete for rights to it.

One thing I think is often overlooked in the "localvore" movement is the growing of non-food crops. Are people who live in areas where cotton doesn't grow willing to do without the fabric? Cotton is a big crop in Arizona because it does very well here. If we eliminated all the cotton except what our residents use, I'm sure it would free up a significant amound of land for growing food crops, but I still don't think it would be enough to support our growing population.

About the only solution I can think of for communities to be totally "localvorous" is to redistribute the population so that only the number of people who can be supported by local agriculture can live in an area. Although on a logical level it makes sense, it just doesn't sound appealing. First question would be who makes the decision on how many people can live in an area, second question would be who enforces the population limits. Nope, doesn't sound appealing at all. The only other option I can think of is to supplement local production with food shipped in from areas that are able to produce an excess of what their own area needs.

[ajaxlucy]

That article was trying to refute the "locavore" position that local is always better, and certainly the authors are right that local is not always a good indicator of sustainability. However, phrases like "food miles advocates fail to grasp the simple idea that...." show that they're trying to bolster their own case by overgeneralizing and oversimplifying the local food movement's point of view. When they go on to suggest that advocates for local foods really want the public to forswear dairy products and give bouquets of root vegetables instead of flowers, they're misrepresenting the food-miles concept as a ridiculous, extremist notion. That doesn't speak of much intellectual integrity on the part of the authors, but it probably sells more books.

[sheepish]

There is a commonly held idea that if we can have something, we should have it. In this age of plenty, technology, and rapid world transit, what we cannot have immediately, is reduced to very little. This deprives us of the joy of experiencing delayed gratification.

A small example: Long before the local food movement, I refused to buy or serve asparagus, except what came out of our own garden in the spring. We looked forward to the day that those precious shoots appeared above the ground and savoured every mouthful until the day that we decided that the beds needed to produce only to strenghthen the roots for the future. It was a delight far from what we experienced the one time I went to the supermarket in November and picked up a bundle of shoots from Equador.

Buying food locally also has the benefit of strengthening the diversity of crop growing. It is becoming increasingly obvious that monocropping mile upon mile of land is not a good way to serve the population nutritious, safe food. Look at the recent mass ecoli experiences and the severe depletion of nutrients from modern vegetables, compared to those of 50 years ago for evidence. If local farmers are asked to produce a wide range of produce from fruits and vegetables to grains to livestock, the land can be given a rest from constantly producing one crop and it can benefit from being revived in nutrient by the manure of nearby animals.

I think that we have enough experience with monocropping to look back at the smallholding practices of the past and see what was good for national food security. Rather than catering to the short term interests of huge food producing corporations, it would be a good idea if the agriculture policy of our nations looked at what is good for the people in the long run. The locavore movement is a grassroots way of beginning this process.

[Truckinguy]

The transportation of food has been going on from nearly the beginning of time. Of course, it's only recently that it has had an environmental cost in the form of fossil fuel pollution. All countries for thousands of years have imported everything from spices to food to materials and that's what adds to the diversity of our lifestyles.

However, it's always a good idea to support the local economy, not to mention locally grown food is fresher and healthier. This is why the answer to most of the problems in this world, from food quality and prices to financial security is the return of the small farm. A wisely and intensely managed small farm can produce far more than the farmer can use, in an environmentally friendly manner and cheaper. Check out the web site www.journeytoforever.org and read the section on small farms. Anyone knowledgable about history will tell you that the most stable civilizations in history were those made up mostly of small farms.

Unfortunately small farms don't make corporate America any money so we wn't see much government support for it.

[pheasantplucker]

Balance and moderation in all things