Monday, September 3, 2007

Food For Thought

First, let me stress that I love farmers markets. I love local vegetables. I love local maple syrup. I love local jams and jellies. Whenever possible, I like to eat and cook food grown fresh locally.

Having said that, I think localvores are crazy.

In case you don't know, a localvore is somebody who insists that all of your food should be produced within your extended community -- defined, apparently, however you choose. Some might say a 100-mile radius; others might say an entire state. The reasons for the movement are threefold: 1) environmental (it uses too much oil and other resources to transport food thousands of miles), 2) health (locally produced food is more likely to be organic or at least less drastically sprayed) and 3) lifestyle (local food tastes better because it's picked when it's ripe).

All good reasons.

But to suggest that we should restrict ourselves to those foods represents a pitchfork mentality. Not only would dismantling the national (and international) food system eliminate a huge number of jobs, but it almost certainly would jack up prices and lead to shortages of quality foods for working-class people. In other words, I doubt if there are enough tomatoes or apples being grown in Virginia to feed the people.

Beyond that, quality is important. Personally, I don't want a local cantaloupe or watermelon. Compared to the Deep South variety, they're insipid. As much as I enjoy local apples, I also like varieties from the West Coast. Ditto cherries. Not to mention bananas and every citrus fruit on the earth. The list goes on and on, from avocados to jalapenos. And, yes, I do enjoy Spanish clementines in December.

I also am not willing to give up fresh tomatoes or mesclun mixes in winter. So why not grow them locally in greenhouses? As a Wikipedia article suggests, some believe it is more environmentally taxing to do that than to ship tomatoes from southern climates to northern climes.

I think the logical solution is to eat locally as much as you can. For instance, it makes no sense to buy a cardboard supermarket tomato in summer when the farmers markets are groaning with great-tasting local tomatoes. But if you want a Rainier cherry, for God's sake, buy them.

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