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psionandy psionandy

Do you care about food miles? Does it matter that your tomatoes have travelled from the other side of the world to reach your plate?

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Food miles are a way of attempting to measure how far food has travelled before it reaches the consumer. It is a good way of looking at the environmental impact of foods and their ingredients. It includes getting foods to you, but also getting waste foods away from you, and to the landfill!
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http://www.organiclinker.com/food-miles.cfm
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kty2777
kty2777
Marked as Best! October 21, 2009 03:28 AM
Yes, I think food miles are important. I think there are many people who are unaware of how far some food travels before its in the store.

I try to buy local produce but it isn't always possible - I buy at the markets so only a limited time to buy what I need and I will end up at the supermarket if I need to.

However, a lot of food miles are from buying out of season fruit and vegetables. So I do actually avoid buying out of season food, not always, but mostly. Its also the best way I know of supporting the local producers. If we all buy the fruit and vegetables in season we don't need to import or move food around so much, and it increases the demand for those foods which help the local producers :)

When its not fresh ( canned or frozen ) I buy food that's grown here ( Australia ) rather than something from overseas, again, if possible.

Picture: The real cost of food by Orhan Tsolak
Asker's Rating:
• I was really shocked when I found out that my salad earned more air miles than I did!!!!
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unwirklich
unwirklich
October 17, 2009 12:45 PM
My only complaint on the link is while I can enter USA I can't enter Alaska.. which is a big difference in miles.

I do care how far some of my food has traveled. In terms of quality a long distance can affect a food as well as what climates it traveled through. For instance, take a peach. Send it across the planet and freeze it twice, that peach is going to SUCK compared to a fresh grown peach. Long travel time often means refrigeration which especially with fruit can mean reduced quality.
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jillbeth
jillbeth
October 17, 2009 01:06 PM
I'm not obsessive about environmental issues but I'm aware that shipping foods impacts the environment in terms of the pollution and water footprint created by transporting foods over long distances. I seldom buy fresh produce at the local grocery, because it just doesn't compare to home grown or locally grown, and we have a nice little farmer's market in town on Saturday mornings.
Source(s):
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/896033/whats_your_water_footprint....
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russb
russb
October 17, 2009 02:05 PM
If I had a reasonable (simple, easy, price competitive) option to choose between the two, I would choose locally grown because I like to support the local economy and I dislike the idea of the environmental cost of long distance shipping. The problem is that I do not usually have a reasonable choice for all of my food buying decisions.
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lacalla
lacalla
October 17, 2009 05:56 PM
Yes, it does matter to me where my tomatoes came from but in my area we don't have much of a choice but to buy what's in the store. I try to buy certain fruits and vegetables that are grown organically.

I would much rather buy those fruits and vegetables from a local organic farmers market but there aren't any in my area. There's a handful of farmers markets but not one that's organic. I buy from the nearest farmers market when it's open.

Given the choice, I wonder how many people would choose local farmers markets over grocery store items. I would be one for sure.
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jkepler
jkepler
October 17, 2009 06:42 PM
I suppose I'd like to care at least somewhat about food miles, but figuring it out is often pretty inconvenient. When I'm in the grocery store, I try to read as little as possible and get out as quickly as I can. We have a logo here that is applied to the local produce, so that helps a little.
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tealmyster
tealmyster
October 18, 2009 06:18 AM
For me it has never occured that something such as food miles should be of any importance. All I normally care about is that it's clean and yummy...Call me selfish...but now I'm curious...and will definetly look at food miles in a different light. thanks :)
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thebandit
thebandit
October 18, 2009 07:11 PM
I do care about food miles, but I also care about my budget, and paradoxically, it's often a lot more expensive to buy local than it is to buy non-local. I'm not sure how much of this is mark-up versus actual quality, but either way, it shows up on the price tag.

So I budget. I have select food items that I'll take the time to buy local/organic, but the rest I just buy the normal kind. Produce, for instance, is a lot better if it's local or organic. It really is. You can taste the difference. But for other things, it just isn't worth it.

Is this sub-optimal? Probably. But I have to work with what I've got.
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