The Road Less Traveled

There are three things that I can’t tolerate – road-rage drivers that insist on sitting three inches from my bumper no matter how many lanes are open near by, stores that advertise that they have everything I could ever need although they don’t ever seem to have it in stock when I get there, and food that is better traveled that I am.

I remember the excitement of having friends to dinner in college, serving French cheeses and wines or Asian noodles with pickled vegetables brought straight from the source. I used to imagine all of those Vietnamese grandmothers making pickled diakon for their family. It’s probably fair to say that I was young and naïve. I suspect that there were never grandmothers in Vietnam who pickled the radishes, because if I were them and could have foisted it off on someone else, I certainly would have.

Still, to be fair, I think we’ve all felt the allure of well-traveled food. And why not? Food is one of the grand transportations to other cultures. It is often how we first get to know a people and a geography. It may not always be a perfect introduction – compare American Chinese food with the real thing. And certainly there can be little resemblance between that culinary perfection that is Italy and the local pizza parlor. [I write this as someone raised in the Great White North where anything that wasn’t white or cheese was considered a novelty.] Still, food is one of the great ways that we step outside of our own culture and begin to take the baby steps of exploring the world.

Food has always traveled. Explorers to the New World brought new foods with them back to Europe. Food has been integral to every trading route since time began. It is the way we explain what we have seen. It is the way we diversify and add comforts to our own lives. And yet, I have to admit, we seem to have reached a new level of traveling food craziness. I’m not talking about trophy foods – the mussels flown in from France this morning, the oranges that were on the tree yesterday and I’m serving to my guests tonight – though I could be. Trophy foods still seem to hold, for me, some essence of the adventuresome spirit that food can bring – though certainly in the era of too many resources, it has gotten crazy in its own right.

This week’s NY Times featured a startling article on how our food travels to get to us and the impact of food economics. Cod caught off the coast of Norway is flown to China for processing and then back to Norway to be sold. Spain imports lemons from Argentina, while it’s own lemons rot on the ground. Why? Because it makes economical sense. It costs $1.36 to process a pound of cod in Europe, but only 23 cents in Asia. South American labor costs are a fraction of those in Europe.

Increased transportation also means that there doesn’t need to be seasonality any more. Our local grocery stores proclaim winter fruit as “Jet Fresh”, bringing in kiwis, grapes, strawberries and raspberries from South American and New Zealand. Why? Because consumers will pay for it. As one food consultant said in the Times article: “Unfortunately,” he said, “we’ve educated our customers to expect… that they can go to the market to get whatever they want, whenever they want it. All year. 24/7.”

But what are the consequences? Paul Watkiss, an economist, has been tracking the increasingly tangled food transportation web. His reports to the EU and to the UK’s Dept of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) demonstrate that increasingly food is traveling, not just from farm to table, but from farm to processor to manufacturer to distributor to table – generally through several countries in the process. While some estimates put the current rate of CO2 pollution from food transport at about 3%, the number is rising fast. The DEFRA reports are beginning to paint a picture of the carbon footprint that these practices create – and the news isn’t cheery or sustainable.

Now I admit that perhaps I'm just a little jealous. I don't travel to the exotic parts of the globe as often as I used to. Perhaps my jet set food is a reminder of days gone by. Still, I think it's worthwhile to weigh in my calculation of how I impact the planet where my food comes from and make some choices. Am I going to give up my French champagne anytime soon? Probably not. But I’m less likely to indulge in ‘Jet Fresh’ fruits and vegetables, using local or regional alternatives instead.

To Be or Not to Be....Local

Global warming, climate change, carbon foot prints, and sustainability are all buzzwords of the decade. Moving from a point of skepticism three years ago, the United States has now joined our more enlightened friends around the globe in understanding that a warming planet will impact us all and that we all have a role to plain in its healing. While much of our attention has been focused on CAFE standards, thermostats, moving off the grid, and alternative energy strategies, it's clear that there is no aspect of our lives that is left untouched. Our cheap clothes, furniture, household goods are made in Asia, and as wages increase in those economies, soon in Africa. But it is our food system that is perhaps the most astonishing, given the perishable nature of these commodities. It is not unusual for fresh food to travel thousands of kilometers from farm to table, using energy in gargantuan quantities and leaving us with both mediocre products and an unrealistic sense of the seasonality of the food we eat. Chilean fruit in winter is carried 8800 km, while lamb from New Zealand flies 12100 km to reach me. And my favorite French bubbly has come 7800 km to toast my friends.

So, is the solution to go 'local'? In many cases, I would argue, yes, local is good for a number of reasons. The quality of the food is better, healthier. It has a smaller carbon foot print. It supports small local farmers who often use organic or at least, less invasive agricultural techniques. It creates a relationship between food consumer, food grower, and seasons. But it isn't quite so simple as this. Food miles, the number of miles that food travels to table, is one measure of impact. However, there are good examples that show that we need to think a bit more subtly than a raw mileage. Tomatoes grown in Spain and trucked to the UK have a lower carbon footprint than those grown in the UK, because the UK requires greenhouses to cultivate and mature the plants.

Going 'local' also requires time and resources, one reason it's seen (outside of agricultural communities) as an elitist endeavor. It takes time to plan menus, find sources of food, and/or grow your own food. The reality is that some nights, I'm not going to be able to give up my bottled spaghetti sauce, since there are just not enough hours in a day. Fresh local food is often more expensive than grocery store alternatives. At a time when food prices are rising quickly and resources become scarce, I may have to pick and choose my battles in becoming 'local'.

Here at home, we're trying an experiment -- we are going to try to grow much if not all of our vegetables for this year, living local. We have about 150 sq ft. of garden space, plus raspberry and strawberry patches (brand new -- no fruit this year). We have planted peas, beans, radishes, lettuces, beets, onions, spinach, and carrots. Soon we will transplant cucumbers, zucchinis, tomatoes and peppers, as well as herbs. And we'll see how far it gets us. In the meantime, I'm going to explore the advantages and barriers to local eating, the impact of our current food system on our health and climate...