“Eat local!” seems to be the rallying cry of my generation. And, I must admit that some of their arguments do interest me, particularly when I get to walk thru luscious farmer’s markets like the one we visited Saturday in San Francisco. If I lived there, I could easily spend hours and way too much money just buying the dozens of different varieties of lettuce they had!
However, most of the arguments I’ve heard for why people eat local (or become “locavores” to use the new term) leaves me unsatisfied. So, even when I’m happy to find a perfectly ripe tomato show up in the box from Greenling, or even when I get a bit jealous that my cousin who lives outside of Houston has an awesome raised-bed garden that produces crops nearly year-round, I still am not a locavore.
Here are the most common arguments I’ve heard (casually & online) for eating locally-raised food:
Energy use/transportation cost:
The argument tends to be that shipping (for example) strawberries from a farm in California to your local grocery store uses a lot of energy (which impacts global oil demand & greenhouse gasses & whatever else). So, you’re better off to buy strawberries that were grown in a greenhouse in your area. There have been quite a few studies on this idea of food miles, and several of them have methodological flaws. In the case of the strawberries, the reality tends to be that growing strawberries in a greenhouse probably takes more energy (especially if you have to heat the greenhouse in a cold climate) than it would to ship them cross-country. So, unless you’re going to limit yourself to only foods that are grown outdoors (without needing intensive effort, lots of extra water, or a heated greenhouse) that argument tends to fall flat. And, this whole battle of energy use gets thrown out the window when, instead of driving about 2 miles to the local grocery store, I drive 10+ miles to the local farmer’s market. My car is the biggest culprit for those greenhouse gasses!
Healthier/better for you:
Studies comparing organic and conventional produce have not found any discernible difference in nutrition. I haven’t found any studies comparing locally-produced vs. non-locally-produced produce, however. But, I rest on one simple argument: There are a lot of nutritious foods that I simply don’t like to eat, or (as in the case of things like brussels sprouts & collard greens), I will only eat when slathered in butter & bacon drippings. For me, it’s healthier & better for me to buy some broccoli that was shipped in than to eat a locally-grown deep-fried turnip chip (just for the sake of consuming the local veggie).
Fresher:
In my experience, some local produce & meat is fresher. But, it depends on what “locality” you’re in! If I’m in the midwest and can get corn that was picked this morning and cook it up for dinner tonight — that’s a certain win. But, a lot of produce actually stays very fresh — and indeed improves (think of avocados), as it sits while being transported. And, a lot of locally-produced items just aren’t nearly as good as those from other areas — take apples, for instance. I don’t so much care if an apple grown around Austin is fresh — it still doesn’t taste as good as the ones I brought home last time I visited Lyman Orchard in Connecticut in the fall.
Supporting the local economy:
Sure, the “buy local” movement is strong and can sometimes make sense. But, I tend to come back with a counter-argument. People who live in Idaho have to buy computers that were designed in Austin (thereby supporting the Austin economy). So, why can’t I buy a potato grown in Idaho? We live in a global economy.
More unique items available:
Yes, when I go to the local farmer’s market, I can find items that my local HEB doesn’t tend to carry — unique melons, heriloom tomatoes, etc. That’s a good thing. I like the foodie-aspect of cooking with those unique ingredients. But, they’ll never be the staple of my diet. And, sometimes, the uniqueness isn’t really that appealing. I’ve cut up quite a few watermelon radish and unique forms of squash from our Greenling box these past few months. Yes, they’re unique — but I don’t really enjoy them. I also suspect that if consumers demanded it, our normal grocery stores would carry more of the unique items.
Arguments in favor of not being a locavore:
Wise money decisions:
Sometimes, when I consider buying a locally-produced cut of beef (costing $10+/lb) vs. picking up a perfectly tasty cut of beef from the grocery store for far less money, I think about a little girl in Swaziland that I get to correspond with thanks to World Vision. I think about how, prior to Matt & I becoming her sponsors, this little girl & her family got their water from the same well that animals drank from and which the animals used as a latrine! If I spend more of my money to buy just locally-sourced items, that means there’s less money left in our budget to share to ensure that this little girl has clean water. That’s an easy trade-off for me. Thanks to modern American agriculture, the average American family spends only 10% of our income on food (source). That leaves a lot of money left to use to do good.
Starvation & Unemployment:
If everyone only ate locally-raised items, a lot of the world would starve, and a lot of good farmers & food processors would be unemployed. Think about Iowa as an example. I have friends who are pig farmers in Iowa. Let’s imagine that they were only allowed to sell their pork to other people in Iowa. And, let’s imagine that people here in Austin could only eat food that was grown around Austin. Well, quite simply, most of us in Austin would starve — and my friends on that pig farm in Iowa would quickly run out of consumers. It simply wouldn’t make sense to try to grow everything we need around Austin when you can grow the same crops – with far better yield for far less effort — in another part of the country. Let the people in Austin’s tech industry focus on finding ways to for the world to be less efficient & use less energy to ship food to us from Iowa instead of forcing them into farming in an area that’s just not well suited to growing a lot of what real people want to eat.
Treating others as we want to be treated:
This is a confusing point, but one that I want to try to make. Some emphasis on eating locally comes with a very subtle “haha, I’m better than you” attitude. It seems to say “I’m on the top now; I don’t care how I got here.” Our country needed mass production & sustainable-yet-non-organic farming practices to become the “bread basket of the world.” We needed people to dedicate their lives to raising good midwestern beef or pork & growing grains that fuel our country. We needed infrastructure that could take great produce from the land of the Jolly Green Giant or the lush California farmland and truck it to places like arid Texas. Without that background, we’d never really be in a position where we could choose if our food was local or not: we’d be in a position where we were happy to get whatever we could scrape up. We’d be in the position of a little girl I love dearly, who (when she first came to the US from Africa) would gnaw a fried chicken leg to the bone and would eat every last morsel on her plate (even if she was no longer hungry), because she was so accustomed to not knowing if/when she’d eat again. Our nation needs agriculture. Our global village also needs our nation to need agriculture. When we in Austin shun inexpensive & tasty pork raised in Nebraska to prefer dry & expensive pork raised nearby, when we thrill with delight over finding a locally-grown yet way-off-season box of strawberries at the farmer’s market, we are in effect saying “I’m on top now. I win. You lose.” I don’t want to be part of that.
Where it lands for me:
- I still get a box of local veggies delivered from Greenling twice a month. I do it not because I want to eat local, but because it’s a way to force us to eat more veggies – and to try new things. If our budget ever gets tight, this is the first luxury I’ll cut out. And, it really is a luxury. That doesn’t mean I’d cut out nutrition (I can find just as much nutrients at my local grocery store — and maybe more considering how much bacon I tend to use when cooking from the Greenling box), but I would cut out an expense.
- I still like to go to Farmer’s Markets, but they’re much more a way to go on a date with Matt than they are a way to fill up our fridge. We enjoy taking a Saturday morning to just be together, and wander around and talk about what food we might try to cook. The cost of driving to the market & the cost of buying specialty items at the market feels like it belongs in an entertainment budget instead of as food.
- I am preparing to re-do our raised garden beds. And, as you can guess, that’s not because I think I have to revert back to a world where I am self-sustainable. It’s because I like gardening as a hobby. I like being able to go to my yard and cut a few sprigs of thyme instead of shelling out a few dollars for a box of herbs at the store. Sure, I’d love it if we ever produce a good tomato from our yard, but I certainly don’t suppose that tomato will be better for me, less expensive, or better for the environment.
- If you choose to eat local, or if you choose to eat organic, I don’t want to judge your decision, but I hope that you’ll respect my right to choose otherwise.
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