Have You Ever Thought How Far Your Food Travelled Just to Be With You? Food Miles and What You Can Do to Cut Them
The concept of food mileage is one that few consider when doing the weekly grocery shopping, but it's a contentious issue among environmentalists and the green lobby in general. Food miles are the miles that your food has to travel to make it to your table from their source. Whether you're in the USA buying chicken from Thailand, or in the UK buying oranges from South Africa, it's likely that you've never really fully considered the impact of buying such foods on the environment and on your pocket.
So why do we need to consider food miles and how can we all benefit from being more aware of them? If your food is being transported long distances, half way around the world in some cases, it will inevitably be being flown, driven or sea-freighted from place to place. Every time you transport goods you generate a carbon footprint through the CO2 produced by whatever transportation method has been used. Now, consider that the further the distance food has to be transported, the more pollution gets created and you can quickly work out why food miles are so important, especially on a national or continental scale, and why it's imperative that something is done to control them.
The need for the transportation of food is primarily driven by consumer demand. The demand for locally grown and produced foods, taking into account the seasonal availability of some produce, has diminished in favour of all-year-round availability of our favourite foods, especially fruit and vegetables. This drives the need for demand to be met through the transportation of food from countries that can grow or produce food varieties that would normally be seasonal, all year round. To address food miles is no small undertaking and will really only happen through education of consumers and a long term revolution in the way that people buy their food, and their attitudes towards seasonal produce.
If the western world in particular were to reconsider the idea of using produce within the natural seasons it is available, food mileage could be considerably reduced across the world with corresponding reductions in pollution and CO2 output.
What can you do then to reduce the food miles in your weekly grocery basket? Particularly for fresh fruit and vegetables, the country of origin is usually marked on each pack, or on the box if it's loose packed. Consider whether you really want to buy items that have come from half way around the world, or whether there's an alternative that might have come from closer to home. By understanding what is seasonal produce and what is not, taking seasonal foods into account will allow you to vary the produce you buy with a view to using foods grown locally at various times of the year. If you've ever noticed that some foods become very expensive at certain times of the year, for example strawberries in winter time, you may have realised that you're seeing the effects of non-seasonal consumer demand and the increased premium as a result of long distance transportation and food mileage to meet the demand.
Only by reducing overall demand for food that has been shipped around the world can we ever hope to reduce the transportation burden we've put upon ourselves through time and the resulting carbon footprint of our own buying preferences.