 |
| Source: http://thelivinglabiesd.wordpress.com/ |
Do you know where your food comes from? No, the answer to that is not Whole Foods or Trader Joe's or your local supermarket.
My question is more deep-rooted than that. Do you know where
your food is produced? Have you ever read the labels on say the produce you
pick up at the store or read the origins of your fruits/vegetables? In this
era, when everyone wants everything all the time food travels a long distance
to enhance your palate making most items available year round. But have you
thought of what goes into this food travel? The amount of gas utilized in
shipping your food to your doorstep? Or the carbon footprint it leaves in its
global travels? Most of us don’t think of this but this is a growing issue.
The buy local movement is a part of this solution. Buying
what grows around you is the best way to avert such crisis. But sometimes you
cannot. For example, I buy organic bananas – but in my local food store these
come from South America. Now I admit this is a long distance for my bananas to
travel but the bananas produced here are laden with pesticides and I don’t fancy
them at all.
So what is the answer? Frankly, I don’t know. My desire to
eat healthy overshadows my desire to reduce the carbon footprint of my food. And
then there is winter when local farming is all but dead. For now, I tell myself
at least during summer, I make it a point to source as much local food as
possible.
What do you think is the answer to this conundrum?
