Motives

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think so. There has been a recent dramatic shift in the way people think about food in this country. While, that's probably the case, there are definitely several different motives for these shifts and they all seem to relate to the amount of information available. Here are some that come to mind:

1. Environmental Impact of the process and delivery
2. Health/Nutritional value of the food
3. Food safety (E-Coli, mad cow, lead, pesticides, etc.)
4. Community support (in the form of local farms, co-ops, markets, etc.)
5. Variety of food (exotic, variety for nutrition)
6. Monetary cost (to consumer)
7. Support of economies in need (not always local)
8. National security (having an adequate supply of food lest the entire world embargo us)

Sometimes these values can be mutually exclusive (e.g. 4 and 7) but they don't always have to be. I just finished reading Movable Feasts by Sarah Murray. It is an interesting tale of several food items and how they are moved from their place of origin to our dinner plates.

It's clearly a book written by a talented travel writer. But she also takes the position that long-distance travel is a good thing for us and for the world -- mainly focusing on the variety and supporting economies in need arguments. However she attempts an environmental argument as well. Part of it is completely valid in my mind and we should all consider it as we have more information about where our food comes from and we're making decisions about which of that is aligned with our values. That argument is that it is sometimes more energy efficient to import food from elsewhere than it is to grow it closer to home (with heated greenhouses, for example).

Her other argument for the environmental benefit of shipping food long distance is that driving to the farmer's market uses more energy than shipping the food in a container ship (per capita). However, she leaves out that driving to the grocery store where you buy the container-ship-provided goods uses the same amount of energy (presumably) as the grocery store. So it falls short of convincing.

Where Michael Pollan's book Omnivore's Dilemma helped me to see that it's not just organic (which has its problems) that's good, but also local, Murray's book helped me see that it's not just local either.

Making decisions about the food we eat is extremely complex if we're trying to account for the different values laid out at the beginning of this post. However, the industry is learning that we want more transparency about sources and things are getting better. If you're concerned about the food you eat, maybe you will consider asking your grocer and/or favorite brands more about the sources of the food.