Is the Local Food Movement harmful?
Carrots are divine. But are they more so when local?
New Cuisine Canada member, Dana McCauley, brought this article to my attention. As a food trend expert, Dana keeps her eye on what’s hot and what’s not in the food world, and it looks like the push for local food is getting a bit of backlash.
In the recent Boston Globe article, “A Bitter Reality”, Tom Keane writes, “The local food movement is an affectation based on bad logic and bad economics.” While he claims local food tastes better when in season, he says the sustainability claims are myth. He points to a 2008 Carnegie Mellon University study that found shipping averages only 4 percent of the total carbon footprint of any foodstuff. He takes eating local to the extreme (no chocolate, no pineapple, no lobster on the Prairies) and looks at the worst-case ramifications.
While Keane’s tone is confrontational, bordering on disrespectful, he does have a point when he says, “Suppose, for instance, that we all did become locavores, swearing off coffee. All we’d end up doing would be hurting the people who do grow coffee beans.”
But is buying something we can’t grow, like coffee or chocolate, the same as importing something we can? Is a fair trade, shade grown java worse than cheap, chemically laced shrimp from Asia?
So, what’s your take on the local food movement? Are you for local all the way, even if it means giving up coffee, lemons and chocolate? Is local important but the first choice of many? Or is local eating just a fad that will run itself out?
Photo © Charmian Christie.
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The wisdom of the ages –moderation in all things– remains valid. I think buying fresh food items locally is a great choice for one’s nutrition. I also like knowing from whence my food cometh. Regardless of our food choices, most other items Americans consume are constructed in and shipped to us from other countries, so the economic argument against locavores seems silly.
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Why must we be so extreme? There is no need to swear off coffee or chocolate just because it can’t be grown locally. But for the rest it just makes sense to buy local – it’s fresher, tastier and more nutritious. All great cuisines are based on fresh, seasonal and local ingredients, laced with the occasional import (spices, coffee, chocolate).
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I’m in agreement with both Esmaa and Sweet Kitchen about moderation. I can’t imagine never eating chocolate again or cinnamon.
However, I’m now looking at local alternative to imported items. For instance, I’m using vinegars from the Niagara region instead of red wine imported from Italy.
Anyone finding local alternatives to items we normally import? Post ‘em here! I’m listening.
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I believe firmly that we should be buying locally but not to the extent that would begin to screw people over. Yes buy corn from down the street rather than across the border I tastes better, it’s got a lower carbon footprint and your helping out your neighbor. No don’t stop buying foods that you can’t get where you are just so that you can say that you eat only local foods so that you can be hip with the in crowd instead of importing your coffee from the people who grow it, the people who need you to buy it. Love of the world and everyone on it is not just some bandwagon to be jumped upon.
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Eat what you can from local farms/farmers and buy the other stuff from responsible growers. Best of both worlds
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the idea behind eating local is not just a bandwagon (though, it depends on who you hang with) — when you choose to eat in the 100 mile or 50 mile diet your also creating awareness of what local foods exists — there are cities and towns existing for over a century, if they were able to live without importing foods then so should we. I also agree (with gottabkd) that the best way to go about choosing foods is to buy local and from responsible. There are huge environmental implications to importing foods and especially monocultured crops that countries like North America demand on producing other countries that farm solely for mass production. Whether its choosing to eat/buy free range because its more humane, or purchasing shade grown from fair trade companies.. I hope it’s not just a popularity contest.
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