You will notice little tags about the market saying how many miles a particular item has. We wrote a blog to answer some simple questions you may have. We will post it below. Hope you find it interesting. :) What are Food Miles and Why Do They Matter? In short, food miles are the measure of the distance a food travels from the land on which it was grown to your plate. A significant portion of all road freight (by vehicle miles) is food. The quantity of food miles on our roads has more than doubled. We travel further for our shopping and use the car more often to do it. We make multiple trips. We eat out at fast food and chain restaurants multiple times a week for multiple meals a week. We demand and expect access to food nearly everywhere we go. We think less about what we are eating and certainly prepare less. We do not as a rule grow our own, nor store, or process our own food. The majority of what we eat has traveled 1500 miles* to reach our plate. Within the last 100 years or more, most food did not travel much farther than the distance of the garden to the kitchen. While some food has nearly always been imported, these were an expensive and rare treat. Historically, the majority of the food we eat has been grown or foraged within the area we live in. Ironically, it was local, it was fresh, it was organic, and it was seasonal. It was the dominating issue and concern in our lives along with shelter and safety. Today, food travels further primarily for three reasons: First, seasonal food is available to us all year round and we are no longer limited to where we can easily gather it. In Maine, for example, we can not grow bananas, avocado, or pineapple. No problem. We can buy these tasty and exotic foods from very far away. We have access. In addition, nearly all eaters can afford these treats. Our ancestors could only afford these exotics if the were wealthy and had physical access to it. Exotics are not the only food that travels. Staples like tomatoes, lettuce and lemons are also transported great distances so we can have a “fresh” salad or BLT sandwich when we desire one. With manufacturing and industrial explosion (not to mention war) came processed food. A processed food has been harvested and processed (cooked, etc.) in large factories where we have had no input into the process of producing our dinner. We buy it...almost everywhere! Grocery stores, fast food restaurants, department stores, gas stations, vending machines in hospitals, schools, etc. all give us access to processed foods. This food seems to provide quick and affordable food to fit in our busy lifestyles. We eat a lot of it. In addition, we like to pay as little for it as possible. We also want it available when we want it. The question for most Americans is “What do I want for dinner?”replacing “What do I have for dinner?” Cheap and processed foods have given birth to an impressive food system of logistics, warehouses, genetically modifying our food for uniformity in shape and color, ability of a food to survive the rolling, dropping, banging nature of conveyer belts, pallets, lifts, and other handling our “fresh” food goes through to reach our plates whole, as well as delaying ripening until it is told (chemical and climatically controlled in a warehouse) by us when we want it to ripen (contrasted with when it naturally ripens). This means that centralized systems of supermarkets have taken over from local and regional markets. For example, milk or potatoes can be transported many miles to be packaged at a centralized warehouse and then sent many miles back to be sold near where they were produced in the first place. In Maine, we import the vast majority of what we eat, wear, or purchase and export our money. Ask yourself as you eat, how many miles did this travel to reach my plate? Cook fresh, seasonal food. Ask yourself more often what is available to eat and work buying locally into your lifestyle. If buying organic is a priority to your family as it is with mine, it is important to buy locally grown organic food rather than imported. Low food miles are important for the nutrition and genuine freshness of what we eat which benefits the health of our community, the wealth of our community, and makes us stronger as individuals and a State. Low food miles raise nutrition and secure our access to life sustaining food. It is not easy. It is not without flaw and possesses many moving pieces. It could not feed us securely at this moment. But, we can continue to build this local system and work towards achieving balance. We can return to Maine our purchasing money, boosting our local economy and quality of life. In the United States, the most frequently cited statistic is that food travels 1,500 miles on average from farm to consumer. That figure comes from work led by Rich Pirog, the associate director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University (he is also behind the strawberry-yogurt calculations referenced above). In 2001, in some of the countrys first food-miles research, Pirog and a group of researchers analyzed the transport of 28 fruits and vegetables to Iowa markets via local, regional, and conventional food distribution systems. The team calculated that produce in the conventional system-a national network using semitrailer trucks to haul food to large grocery stores-traveled an average of 1,518 miles (about 2,400 kilometers). By contrast, locally sourced food traveled an average of just 44.6 miles (72 kilometers) to Iowa markets.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 10:52:42 +0000
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