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Written by Rina Wolok   
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Wednesday, 23 July 2008

Food Miles

“Food miles” has become a new buzz term, suddenly so common in the environmentalist vernacular that people may be shy about asking what it means! Simply put, food miles are the number of miles a food item has had to travel from its origin to its final destination in your home or on your plate at a restaurant. While it is not necessarily known exactly how many miles an apple at the supermarket had to travel to reach you, one can infer that an apple from your home state has traveled less distance than an apple whose sticker declares it is from another country. How do or should these food miles affect our decisions as consumers?

People who care about food miles tend to be mainly concerned with the carbon footprint of their food's transport. That is, they want to lower greenhouse gas emissions by cutting down the amount of carbon-based fuel that is required to get their food from the farm to their mouths. Greenhouse gases are naturally occurring, and they keep the temperature of the earth's atmosphere warm enough for life to exist. However, when excessive greenhouse gases are emitted into the atmosphere, they cause more heat to stay trapped close to the earth, causing the planet to warm. This has been generally accepted, although not without controversy and dissent, to have led to our current “global warming” problem. Global warming is generally considered the cause of present day extreme weather patterns, partial melting of the polar ice caps, and the rapid change of both wildlife and human habitats as the climate morphs. The idea behind food miles is that, if humans can cut down our emissions of the carbon dioxide (a potent greenhouse gas) released in food transportation, we will be able to help slow the process of global warming. A helpful “fringe benefit” is that we will also be able to make the earth's known oil reserves last longer.

In truth, the term “food miles” itself is imprecise and does not give us the full amount of information necessary to determine the environmental impact of our food's transport. The problem is that the same number of food miles can mean different things, depending on how the food made its way to you. For example, it is much more efficient, in terms of fuel use, for food to travel by boat than for it to travel by railroad, truck or plane. In energy consumption per ton, per kilometer traveled, studies have shown that air transport uses the most energy, truck transport the second most, railroad transport the third most, and water transport the least. In fact, water transport of food can be over 37 times more efficient than air transport!1 Also, it is more efficient for food to be packaged after it has been transported, because packaging takes up space in the vehicle as well. Furthermore, fuel use efficiency depends heavily on how much food a given vehicle transports. If I transport five tons of produce to a market in my truck and you transport twenty tons in your truck, you will have a much higher fuel use efficiency than I will, even if I am using a smaller vehicle. You will be using less fuel per ton of food. Another problem is that certain markets are located in non-residential areas, so even if the food does not travel far to get to such markets, the customers are likely to drive to these markets in personal cars, jacking up the food mile count tremendously.

Food miles may be hard to calculate, and they may be an overly simplistic way of approaching the problem of fuel use in food transport. However, Professor Tim Lang of London, the man who coined the term “food miles,” notes that, "The point was to highlight the hidden ecological, social and economic consequences of food production to consumers in a simple way, one which had objective reality but also connotations." Lang has certainly accomplished his original goal of raising awareness of how far food travels. While it would be difficult to place a specific number of standardized food miles on any particular food label in the supermarket, the whole concept of food miles has revolutionized the way that members of society see our food system.

Indeed, just three years after author and chef Jessica Prentice coined the term “locavore,” the word has already made its way into the Oxford American Dictionary and been named 2007 word of the year! What is a locavore, you ask, and what does it have to do with food miles? Well, a locavore is a person who is committed to getting as much of her or his food as possible from local sources. There is no strict dictionary definition of what “local” means. The original locavore movement started in San Francisco and encouraged people to eat food that was produced 100 miles or less away from their homes. However, different locavores set different standards for themselves. Some define “local” as 50 miles, some 150 miles. However locavores choose to set their standards, they are certainly eating food produced closer to home than are most Americans. An average food item in the United States has traveled 1,500 miles to reach the consumer!

It is a rewarding challenge to be a locavore. One primary resource for fresh produce is your local farmers' market. However, it can be somewhat difficult to find a full range of dairy products at a farmers' market. Many dairy farmers will bring an assortment of cheeses, but yogurt and milk itself tend to be more difficult to find. Meat is even harder to find amongst all the fresh produce. Dairy and meat have been appearing at more and more farmers' markets in recent years, however, you are more likely to find animal products in an area where the health department is less overbearing and farmers are less fearful of strict regulations and penalties. Nonetheless, with trends leaning towards diversifying farmers' markets, locavores who show up early might just be able to buy most of their food for the week, both produce and animal products, at one farmers' market.

Another good source of local food is a C.S.A. Even city dwellers can often find a C.S.A. that drops off produce in their area. (See Greeniacs article on C.S.A.s at http://www.greeniacs.com/GreeniacsArticles/Community_Supported_Agriculture.) Co-op grocery stores also often stock produce, animal products, and grains that are produced as locally as possible. One advantage of shopping at a co-op market is that the market can provide you with a history of the product you wish to buy, where it was grown, etc. In more rural areas, look out for u-pick and farm stand operations. Many farms will also sell animal products directly off the farm, so researching some operations in your area should pay off.

It may seem at first that the locavore movement is just another fad diet that will disappear within a few years. However, when you take a look at the bestsellers’ shelf at your local bookstore, you may notice that food miles are becoming more and more of a mainstream topic of discussion. Authors like Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver are helping the movement along with their passionate, popular books. In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan describes how difficult it is to trace the history of the food items in a typical American meal, and, in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Kingsolver leads by example, describing her family's year of eating local foods. As “green living” becomes increasing popular, the concept of food miles is just one of the important environmental issues that has become more widely discussed.

However, some scholars who study food and agriculture have begun to question the importance of “counting food miles” in comparison with other food-related efforts to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. For example, Christopher Weber and Scott Matthews of Carnegie Melon University discovered in a recent study that eating less meat, dairy and eggs cuts down on greenhouse gas emissions more than does eating locally. A car that is driven 12,000 miles a year and gets 25 miles per gallon of gas will emit 4.4 tons of carbon dioxide each year. If the driver of such a car becomes a strict locavore, this switch will be equivalent to that person driving about 1,000 fewer miles per year. If, however, the driver abstains from eating animal products just one day per week, that switch will be equivalent the person driving about 1,160 fewer miles per year.

While purchasing only local foods all the time will take more effort than purchasing only vegetable products for one day per week, there are other positive results of eating locally that do not also result from eating vegetarian. As Michael Pollan discusses in The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food, much of our so-called “food” these days is full of artificial additives and corn-derived substances that are good for neither the environment nor human health. Abstaining from animal products does not necessarily equate to eating more natural and whole foods. However, eating locally often means purchasing from local farmers who do not use the same kinds or amounts of food additives as are used by major food processing and distribution companies.

Furthermore, eating vegetarian or vegan does not necessarily help foster local community and the local economy. A locavore lifestyle can make a social and economic impact, in addition to the clear environmental impact. Locavores frequent farmers' markets and often subscribe to C.S.A.s. Locavores strengthen connections between farmers and their surrounding communities, encouraging farmers to continue outreach programs that will make more people see the appeal of local foods. The concept of food miles is useful to keep in mind as we make our food choices. Through an awareness of food miles, we can make a positive difference for other people, our economy, and the earth.

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Resources:

1. Wikipedia article on Food Miles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_miles

2. “Sustainable Table” article http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/buylocal/

3. “Do Food Miles Matter?” (questions the importance of eating local in “curbing global warming) http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2008/apr/science/ee_foodmiles.html

4. “Food That Travels Well” (NY Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/opinion/06mcwilliams.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

5. “Locavores” http://www.locavores.com/

6. Wikipedia article on Local Foods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_food

7. “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” website http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/

8. Michael Pollan's website http://www.michaelpollan.com/omnivore.php

9. “Meat and Dairy Additions Meet One-Stop-Shopping Demands” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/15/ST2008041502868.html

10. Harvest Co-op http://www.harvestcoop.com/





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