"cat daddy" wrote in message
...
Hmm, not so simple a choice as it seems... sigh

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/op...html?th&emc=th
Food That Travels Well

By JAMES E. McWILLIAMS
Published: August 6, 2007
Austin, Tex.

THE term "food miles" - how far food has traveled before you buy it - has
entered the enlightened lexicon. Environmental groups, especially in
Europe,
are pushing for labels that show how far food has traveled to get to the
market, and books like Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A
Year of Food Life" contemplate the damage wrought by trucking, shipping
and
flying food from distant parts of the globe.

There are many good reasons for eating local - freshness, purity, taste,
community cohesion

which includes keeping money circulating in local economies, one advantage

and preserving open space - but none of these benefits
compares to the much-touted claim that eating local reduces fossil fuel
consumption. In this respect eating local joins recycling, biking to work
and driving a hybrid as a realistic way that we can, as individuals,
shrink
our carbon footprint and be good stewards of the environment.

On its face, the connection between lowering food miles and decreasing
greenhouse gas emissions is a no-brainer. In Iowa, the typical carrot has
traveled 1,600 miles from California, a potato 1,200 miles from Idaho and
a
chuck roast 600 miles from Colorado. Seventy-five percent of the apples
sold
in New York City come from the West Coast or overseas, the writer Bill
McKibben says, even though the state produces far more apples than city
residents consume. These examples just scratch the surface of the problem.
In light of this market redundancy, the only reasonable reaction, it
seems,
is to count food miles the way a dieter counts calories.

But is reducing food miles necessarily good for the environment?
Researchers
at Lincoln University in New Zealand, no doubt responding to Europe's push
for "food miles labeling," recently published a study challenging the
premise that more food miles automatically mean greater fossil fuel
consumption. Other scientific studies have undertaken similar
investigations. According to this peer-reviewed research, compelling
evidence suggests that there is more - or less - to food miles than meets
the eye.

It all depends on how you wield the carbon calculator. Instead of
measuring
a product's carbon footprint through food miles alone, the Lincoln
University scientists expanded their equations to include other
energy-consuming aspects of production - what economists call "factor
inputs
and externalities" - like water use, harvesting techniques, fertilizer
outlays, renewable energy applications, means of transportation

which is mainly based on shipping produce as opposed to air freight, at
least for our produce. Kenyan apples, as an example, may have a much lower
footprint than NZ beef so they may still come out ahead of European or US
apples. NZ meat comes out ahead if it is shipped versus maybe UK meat
trucked around. Air freighting produce throws the whole equation up in the
air.

rob