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BANG FOR THE BITE
If 10,000 Biters choose a locally produced apple instead of a nonlocal one, we'll save enough gas to fill the tanks of 50 cars.
COCKTAIL FACT
The New Oxford American Dictionary's 2007 word of the year was locavore, meaning someone who eats exclusively local food.
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home › tip library › Local versus Organic Food
Is everybody doin' a brand new dance now?
The Bite
C'mon, c'mon... To kick off a week of green myth-busting, we're starting right in your area. Buying local food is often better for the planet than buying organic, since an organic potato from Peru takes so much more energy to ship than a nonorganic one from Idaho. With more markets starting to label their food, it's just slightly harder than learning your ABCs.The Benefits
- Ridin' the fresh train. Produce shipped from outside the country travels up to two weeks before it arrives in grocery stores.
- Giving local farmers a chance now. If you buy goods produced nearby, you'll keep more money in your community...and more farmland.
- Jumping back from energy waste. It takes 4-17 times less oil to produce local food compared to nonlocal.
- Getting off the bruise-control track. Food that has to travel long distances usually requires additional packaging and may have been genetically modified in order to survive the trip.
Personally Speaking
"Locally grown" signs have been popping up next to the "organic" signs at Whole Foods and our local supermarket chains, which makes our jobs as consumers a little easier.Wanna Try?
- Local Harvest - locate a farmers market or CSA near you.
- Sustainable Table - see what's in season in your area.
- 100 Mile Diet - feeling ambitious? Find out what it takes to eat only food produced within a 100-mi radius of your home.
Mar 17,2008
Sponsor
All editorial suggestions in this tip are the result of testing and a preference for the tip topic. No advertiser has paid to have its company referenced in the tip. For more information, please read our Editorial Policy.
Either/Or Not
While researching this tip, I found this article on a Portland, OR, food mag’s website.
To sum it up, the writer points to the fact that whether you pick local or organic, you’re making the right choice. Plain and simple consciousness about how your food is produced and where it comes from is bound to ultimately lead to better buying choices.
By no means do I purchase only local and organic food when I’m at the grocery store (though frequenting the best co-op in the nation helps). But today’s tip and the article are just reminders that putting a little thought into our purchasing never hurts.
-Toshio…off to squeeze a local lime into my nonlocal Tecate…
To sum it up, the writer points to the fact that whether you pick local or organic, you’re making the right choice. Plain and simple consciousness about how your food is produced and where it comes from is bound to ultimately lead to better buying choices.
By no means do I purchase only local and organic food when I’m at the grocery store (though frequenting the best co-op in the nation helps). But today’s tip and the article are just reminders that putting a little thought into our purchasing never hurts.
-Toshio…off to squeeze a local lime into my nonlocal Tecate…
Biter Comments...
Don't know about across the pond where you are but in England the "locally Grown" sign popping up in a few supermarkts is an incredibly cheeky bit of deceptive greenwashing. - The food IS grown locally it's true, however, being sold in a huge supermarket chain means it gets to travel all across the country to the store's central depot to get processed/packaged/whatever else they feel the need to do with their produce, then all the way back again to the store. Locally grown? yes, saving on fuel and carbon emissions? not remotely.
The only way to get truly locally grown food is to get it from local farmer's markets.
(or even normal local greengrocers that don't trumpet "locally grown" probably have food that travels shorter distances than supermarket produce.)
Here in Burlington VT we have a VERY active localvore community, check out www.eatlocalvt.org. Last fall for the month of September I participated in the "Eat Local Challenge," pledging to eat only food produced within 100 miles of home. Not only was it pretty easy, it was delicious!! Participants had the option to pledge anywhere from a day to a week to the whole month, and could allow themselves exceptions (coffee, etc). There were pot-swap dinners, a kick-off event at our local co-op, and several other events throughout the month.
In saying local over organic, you are only taking emissions into consideration. There are other things to be to concerned with such as: farming practices, pesticides contaminating our water supplies, and of course we eat this produce, so, health effects of non-organic food is also a viable concern. Not to be too demanding, but, I want local food that is also organic. Which would be easier to get, if instead of just jumping on the 'local' bandwagon, we used our buying power to influence our local farmers to shift their practices.
Another big benefit to buying local is that you often get to meet and interact with the very people who are producing your food. I have been able to cultivate personal relationships with the people that supply my meat and produce. They're always a joy to talk to, are happy to give free advice, can tell me anything I might want to know about their products and provide the sort of personal service that a chain store never could. It's not anonymous - if you have concerns or requests, you can voice them directly to them, and they're usually very receptive (they want to make their customers happy). Also, I don't know about elsewhere, but my small local suppliers are operating organically anyway, so that's not an issue.
Locally grown foods can often also be organic. They are not mutually exclusive. Many local farmer's markets will seel their organically grown treats with pride. At Whole Foods we promote local growers and producers economically as well as by giving them shelf space. The more these small local purveyers are supported they more they can thrive and be wonderful examples to others.
Happy eating!!!
While I love the idea of eating locally grown produce, I live in Southern AZ and there just is not an abundance of locally grown produce available here - and what is available is not the quality you get in CA or other areas. In addition, with little kids to worry about, I am concerned about feeding them pesticides so I don't want to give up the organic option. Farmers Markets are scarce on my end of town and getting there every weekend when my hubby works and the kids have activities is sometimes impossible so sometimes Sunflower Market is my only option and while they do offer some local produce, it is not always worth buying. If anyone in this area has better resources they can suggest I would love to hear about them!
Just because the local farmer's produce doesn't have "certified organic" labeling, it doesn't mean they aren't. Our friends grow organic Kona coffee on a small farm in Hawaii, and they say the cost and effort required to get that labeling is not worth it. Many small farmers are very ecologically minded, and if you're able to talk to the farmer yourself, you'll often find it's organic.
There are levels and there are levels - of quality, personal health, planetary health and economics, involved in how we shop for food. Everyone cannot always choose the best (local, healthful, fresh, AND organic at any given time. You can only do the best you can.
Our general rule of thumb is: Always the least processed (flour, milk, bread are processed foods, too), then only fresh foods, then local, then organic depending on what is available and affordable to me on that day. I also try to only eat what is seasonal in my geographic area... but admit to bananas and ginger creeping in now and then.
And, yes, many things grown on small local farms are often organic without being certified due to the costs involved for certification.
Focusing on "food miles" is often an oversimplification of the environmental impact of our food, as this article in the New Yorker entitled "Big Foot" points out.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/
02/25/080225fa_fact_specter
Local food may actually have a more damaging environmental impact than imported food because places like South America or New Zealand (or Florida and California) often need less irrigation or pesticides and are sunnier and warmer -- the better to grow food in an energy efficient manner.
This makes it very hard for the everyday consumer to know when to buy local and when not to. What we need is a carbon tax so that the carbon footprint is reflected in the price of our food products, as well as other goods.
"It takes 4-17 times less oil to produce local food compared to nonlocal."
Do you mean because of transportation?
I have found that there is about 30% less energy used during organic agricultural production than with standard industrial production, but local and non-local production differs on methods of farming and not location.
I have been doing some projects and research on food energetics, so if anyone has the cited source for these numbers, I would love to have them.
Myth busting, indeed. All you've done, as usual, is support more myths. Those potatoes from Peru could have traveled by boat and have a lower carbon footprint. There are many reasons to buy local, but there are many variables to take into account when assessing product impacts. The Bite loves simple solutions, but just like buying your way into sustainability, it's never that simple.
I love local foods. The thing that cheeses me off about Whole Foods is that their 'locally grown' consists mostly of New Hampshire and Vermont. They have ONE CT farm. There are tons of local farmers who produce wonderful things, just apparently not in the quantity that Whole Foods requires.
I feel that 'locally grown' should apply to the state you live in. Even in the land of endless winter.
Wild Oats did a better job of having truly local foods.
Please, if anyone from WF is reading this, get more CT farms for your CT stores. Thank you.
Catherine - I have the opposite problem with Whole Foods. I live in Dallas, and they'll call a product "local" if it came from anywhere within the state of Texas. Texas is big. Sometimes products from Oklahoma or Louisiana are more "local" to me than items from many regions of my home state. Seafood from the gulf coast may be deemed local, but that's three hundred miles from here! I agree with the person who said that everyone needs to just do the best they can with what's available to them.
Im sorry this isnt about local produce, but about companies. (This is my comment to a post from a couple months ago, but I couldnt find it, so Im writing on this one.) Anyway, while I know that MANY natural and organic product companies are selling to the big corporate honchos, I personally feel I have to boycott Burt's Bees, since they not only sold out to a big league-er, but they sold to Chlorox! Chlorox is completely opposite of what I thought Burt's Bees was and stood for. Anyway, No more Burt!
This "local" garbage is just a lot of hype.
Sorry, there is no way that dumping pesticides and herbicides and pollutants is "ok" just because it is local.
This is like the fantasy that the Amish farms are quaint and wonderful- as Amish puppy farmers abuse puppies in terrible puppy mills!
And as far as "local" meat farmers go, they use the same polluting & abusive techniques that large factory farms do, as well as the same hormones and drugs.
And the dairy farms ship their unwanted cows off to the same slaughterhouses, such as the Chino one that was busted recently.
It is absolute naivete to think that "local" meat producers are any better. All meat producers are environmentally damaging in many ways.
And they consistently oppose better humane laws "locally."
One big plus with buying local is that you can get to know the farmers and visit their operations to make your own decision as to whether it is the type of operation you want to support. Many local farmers DO use organic farming methods but may not actually apply to be "certified organic" because of the red tape involved. I would rather buy from a small local farmer who isn't certified organic than from a huge organic corporation (or worse yet the organic division of a conventional farming corporation) that is only following the certified organic rules to make a buck!
Mary beat me to comment about Michael Specter's fabulous piece in the NEW YORKER. If you care about all of this, read it!
The equation for what's environmentally best to consume is large and with many, many variables. What's most upsetting is that as consumers, or even as gardeners ourselves, we don't really have the scientific knowledge to decry one food better than the other because in this case common sense just doesn't cut it.
On a side note, while I wish I could afford to eat only organic veggies, they are often out of my price range ($5 per organic bell pepper? Are you kidding? Is this because the corporations selling vegetables in chain stores know they can squeeze that much out of us?). If green farming is so cheap, why do we not see the benefits on our debit cards? Can there be a Bite to address this question?
In response to Kitten's post, maybe one thing to consider is that local and/or organic food can't always be cheaper. We are so used to having access to inexpensive food available through corporate farming, but we may not be able to have better quality and the same low prices.
I recommend the book Deep Economy by Bill McKibben for anyone interested in learning more about the impact of buying local and the trade offs we have to face in order to create real change with this issue.
Hi All;
I have worked for both Whole Foods and Wild Oats. I have worked in this business for many years. Both companies try (tried) very hard to do the right thing and the best thing for customers and vendors. It is different region to region. And we are not perfect. Ultimately, it is up to each of us. We can make good choices in the markets. We can get to know and trust local growers and manufacturers. We can also grow and make our own, which is a wonderful experience for everyone.
Peace to all. Sally
Check out this article from today's Newsweek: "The Carbon Cost From Farm to Fork" for another viewpoint on the issue.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/120092
I think Ed said it best when he said, "There are many reasons to buy local, but there are many variables to take into account when assessing product impacts." And, "The Bite loves simple solutions, but just like buying your way into sustainability, it’s never that simple."
It's easy to "buy locally" pretty much year 'round when you live within 100 miles of the San Fernando Valley (the Nation's produce section), but most Americans don't. So, as another poster said, we just need to do the best we can with whatever is available to us. Besides, the "organic" label is all the rage these days. Just as something locally produced can be organic without being labeled as such because of the cost involved, how can we be sure that something in our local supermarket that is labeled "organic" really is, or that it just has that label slapped on it by some big company because it's so lucrative. (I wonder if at least part of the reason why "certified organic" foods cost so much more than non-organic foods is because of the cost involved in getting that certification.)
However, I do appreciate the links made available in this e-mail. I've bookmarked Local Harvest and Sustainable Table. I find sites like these to be very helpful in deciding what's what. Thanks!
Although I love to buy locally and interact with the producer/grower at the market, it is sometimes not the best option, both for people and the planet. I would much rather import organically-grown, fairly-traded food from family farms in third world countries than buy that of the conventional variety from a "local" source. By patronizing those with environmentally-friendly and fair farming practices in developing communities, one not only helps to end global poverty (which by itself leads to some of the worst types of environmental degradation--such as deforestation), but also promotes food traditions that otherwise may die out as the world becomes more culturally homogenized. Yes, I will take organic + local any day, but if it's not fair and organic, I don't care where it's from!
I have been impressed with the thoughtfulness that has obviously gone into the composition of the above responses. Thank you all for helping me to think more clearly about this issue, and providing resources to explore it further.
As a vegan, I get especially excited when I score the "trifecta" at my local food co-op (Madison Market in Seattle): a product that is local, organic, and vegan.
PHOTO ALBUMS
Posted by: Nicole | March 17, 2008 at 04:43 AM