Eating Locally

Eating Locally

   

                                                                                                                        seriouseats.com

Talon columnist Luiza Gundim offers her take on the June edition's Animal, Vegetable, Mineral theme.

     Every so often my mom brings up some radical ideas to be implemented

in our home. Those range from leaving our shoes at the front door to completely

eliminating sugar from our diet. Most of them, however, relate to turning our

household more "green," which has consistently earned her the nickname "eco-

chata". Despite the jokes my brother and I make about it, her arguments are

usually valid.

     Back in 2009, when we lived in Portugal, she was astonished by the

amount of food imported from Brazil. They were mainly tropical fruits such as

banana, mango, and papaya, but that upset her a lot. The reason being is that,

in order for the fruits to get across the Atlantic still fresh, they have to be air-

shipped. That, according to my mom, is a waste of energy and fuel, and therefore

bad for the environment. Her point is, then, that in Portugal we should consume

Portuguese products; in Brazil we should consume Brazilian products. We didn’t

even take her seriously: there is no such thing as a diet restricted to olive oil,

bad-quality oranges, and particularly, bacalhau.

     Not until reading about Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, did

I think carefully about my mom’s air-shipment theory. Barbara Kingsolver wrote

this non-fiction book detailing her family’s attempt to eat locally for a whole

year. They started a farm in Virginia and ate only the food they were able to

cultivate themselves. Also, they adjusted to feeding only on the nutriments found

locally in season.

     Eating locally is beneficial to our communities in various ways. As claimed

by the New Economics Foundation in London, a dollar spent locally generates

twice as much income for the local economy. When money is not spent in

regional businesses and products, it leaves the community at every transaction.

Also, local cultivated products are fresher, giving a better taste to your food and

increasing its nutritional value. Because the availability of regional foods varies
 according to the time of the year, they are more abundant and less expensive in 
their peak season, therefore being favorable to the customer’s financial resources, 
too.

     In spite of the fact that organic foods are a popular choice for people who

want to adopt a healthier lifestyle, eating local products is still better for the

environment. Organic food has to travel thousands of miles to get to our plates,

having many ecological impacts that are greater than its benefits. Since local

foods travel much shorter distances, they are less susceptible to contamination

and they don’t cause pollution.

     At an event called “Food Fight” in San Francisco, the guest speaker

Anuradha Mittal of the Oakland Institute used California as an example to

illustrate the controversy of the food industry:

     • “20% of Californian table grapes are sent to China. China is the

          world's largest producer of table grapes.

     • Half of all processed tomatoes that California exports go to

         Canada. At the same time, the U.S. imports $36 million of Canadian

         processed tomatoes yearly.

     • California exports Brussels sprouts to Canada and imports

         Brussels sprouts from Belgium.

     • $70,000 of California pistachios is sent to New York, then travels

         by ship to Italy, while California imports $50,000 of pistachios

         from Italy.

     • The US imports $19 million of Canadian cherries a year, while

         Canada is the second most important destination for California

         cherries.”*

     Although it would be hard to start a farm in the middle of São Paulo,

Kingsolver’s effort towards sustainable eating is well-founded. The ecological

impacts of growing food in factory farms, adding preservatives for it not to spoil,

and then transporting it are substantial. The food industry is geared towards

profit, not towards health and the environment. It is up to us, consumers, to

choose whether we want our food to come from miles away or from the farms

around the area. After all, the world is what we eat.