Reducing Food Miles and Carbon Footprint
Food miles relates to the distance your food has travelled to get to your plate and importantly how it has travelled to get there too - be it plane, train boat or truck.Once upon a time eating used to be easy. Now, however, eating has become moral, ethical & even political.It's August and if you do not eat organic food you can walk into any supermarket and buy a bunch of asparagus. In Australia asparagus is a summer plant, so it's likely to come from some South American country like Peru. That is 14000km in travel just so we can have the luxury of eating now what we would normally eat in summer.A recent study compiled by the The Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies discovered that the average NSW shopping trolley containing 29 food goods from any supermarket had travelled an amazing 71,000km. The total value of food exports in 2007 was $7.2 billion up from $5 billion in 2002.A couple of years ago 2 Canadian guys decided they would only eat food that came from within 100 miles of their home. They did it for a year and it was so successful they started a movement called the 'locavores' who only eat local produce - cool huh. Considering that the average meal in North America has travelled more than 2500 miles, I really like the concept. Check out their 100 mile diet.Reducing Food Miles- Eat seasonal fruit and vegetables
- Buy at local farmers markets - see list of farmers markets
- Grow your own
- Ride your bike to pick up your food
- Walk to get your food from local shops
- Don't buy bottled water
Think globally and act locally.AndrewDown To Earth Organics
Reducing Food Miles and Carbon Footprint
Food miles relates to the distance your food has travelled to get to your plate and importantly how it has travelled to get there too - be it plane, train boat or truck.Once upon a time eating used to be easy. Now, however, eating has become moral, ethical & even political.It's August and if you do not eat organic food you can walk into any supermarket and buy a bunch of asparagus. In Australia asparagus is a summer plant, so it's likely to come from some South American country like Peru. That is 14000km in travel just so we can have the luxury of eating now what we would normally eat in summer.A recent study compiled by the The Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies discovered that the average NSW shopping trolley containing 29 food goods from any supermarket had travelled an amazing 71,000km. The total value of food exports in 2007 was $7.2 billion up from $5 billion in 2002.A couple of years ago 2 Canadian guys decided they would only eat food that came from within 100 miles of their home. They did it for a year and it was so successful they started a movement called the 'locavores' who only eat local produce - cool huh. Considering that the average meal in North America has travelled more than 2500 miles, I really like the concept. Check out their 100 mile diet.Reducing Food Miles- Eat seasonal fruit and vegetables
- Buy at local farmers markets - see list of farmers markets
- Grow your own
- Ride your bike to pick up your food
- Walk to get your food from local shops
- Don't buy bottled water
Think globally and act locally.AndrewDown To Earth Organics
