Email
Print
del.icio.us
digg
yahoo!
Comments
FeedLa Vida Local
Does eating Minnesota-grown food truly benefit the planet and the local economy? One man finds such claims difficult to swallow.
By Greg Breining
Photo by Shannon Brady (Illustration)
(page 1 of 2)
The Sunbutter was disappointing. The mashed-up North Dakota sunflower seeds and sugar dripped off the knife—ugly brown and too sweet. I would have preferred peanut butter. ¶ But I was trying to “eat local”—in the parlance of the moment, subsisting on foods grown and processed close to home. I was planning to stick to the diet of a locavore for two weeks to find out what was available, to learn what I would have to give up, and to examine why anyone would really want to make such a commitment. My wife, Susan, an adventurous chef and fan of fresh, whole foods, would help select our menu and do most of the cooking.Eating local is hardly a new idea: Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, in 1971, with a menu emphasizing ingredients purchased from local farmers. Today, co-ops paste local-food stickers on goods. Some even post food-miles—the distance that products travel from farm to fork. At Google headquarters in California, none of the produce served in the cafeteria travels more than 150 miles. Recently, local food has even been the subject of several books, such as Plenty by a Canadian couple who tried a “100-mile diet” for a year.
To begin our experiment, Susan and I visited Mississippi Market, a co-op grocer that promotes local food and is close to our home in St. Paul. (To drive farther than a couple of miles to buy “local” seemed contradictory.) We decided to limit ourselves to foods produced within 100 miles of the Twin Cities, but soon realized some compromises were in order. Any Minnesotan can eat local in summer or fall, when the stalls at the farmers’ market overflow with produce. But the pickings are slim in January. So we redrew the line, at roughly 200 miles from home. That allowed plenty of choices: cream from Cedar Summit Farm in New Prague, apples from Whitewater Valley Orchard in St. Charles, breakfast sausage from Pastures A Plenty in Kerkhoven. We reached a bit farther for a few items—jam made from blueberries gathered on the Red Lake reservation, and pasta from North Dakota wheat. Some items, such as La Perla tortillas, were locally made, but the origin of their ingredients was unknown. The Guatemalan Peace Coffee traveled a long way, but who could resist the righteousness of organic, shade-grown, farmer-friendly, fair-trade coffee delivered to the co-op by bicycle?
The two-week experiment began. Breakfasts were easy, and not much different from what I usually ate: oatmeal and cream, with maple sugar and (nonlocal) salt. Eggs from cage-free hens, topped with shallots and micro-greens (beets, arugula, endive, chard). Sausage from pasture-raised hogs. Lunches relied on locally baked bread and crisp Keepsake apples.
For our first supper, Susan roasted a free-range chicken with shallots and garlic. The casserole paired wild rice with a Hen of the Woods mushroom that was the size of a soccer ball (we’d picked it on a hike the previous fall). The “cheese squash” she prepared looked like a flattened pumpkin the color of cheap car upholstery. But it cooked up tender, if a little stringy, sweetened with maple sugar. To drink, I grabbed a dark cherry stout brewed by a friend.
Our meals weren’t cheap. We could have saved money by bargain-hunting at a big box. But a fresh loaf from a local bakery tastes better than Wonder Bread, and our free-range chicken was more flavorful than most grocery-store birds. When I compared the prices we paid with those of nonlocal products, I discovered we spent a bit more. But often local and nonlocal goods cost about the same.
It was great eating, but I still struggled to understand why I should make “local” a criterion for choosing food. I grasped why you’d prefer products that were fresh, organic, in-season, or certified as environmentally friendly. I could see why you’d buy from your friend the farmer down the road, eat from your garden, or fish or hunt for your own sustenance. I even understood promoting Minnesota food—if you’re a Minnesota farmer.
Sure, plenty of great food grew within a couple hundred miles of my home and was available even in winter. But why forgo lettuce from California or limes from Florida? Why should I, as a consumer, choose local over nonlocal foods?
A century ago, Minneapolis mills ground enough flour in a day to bake 12 million loaves. Trains carried sacks to Eastern cities, and much of Minnesota’s flour was shipped abroad. Since then, the distances that food travels have risen wildly. A 2001 report by researchers at Iowa State University found that, on average, an item of fresh produce travels more than 1,500 miles. The ingredients in strawberry yogurt journey more than 2,200 miles before reaching store shelves.
The trucks, planes, and ships that carry our food burn fossil fuels, depleting the world’s oil reserves and contributing to pollution and global warming. Certainly, I could be persuaded to eat locally if doing so would help reduce the carbon footprint of my meals.
But when shipping is done in bulk, transportation costs are fairly small, according to calculations by the Iowa State researchers. A fully loaded 18-wheeler carrying produce from California to Minnesota consumes about a quart of fuel per 25-pound load. By contrast, if I make a special trip to the St. Paul Farmers’ Market in my Honda Civic to buy local food I can’t get at Cub Foods, I also burn a quart of gas. Trifling decisions about when and how we shop can also affect energy usage.
Now imagine the scene at the market: Proud producers with fruits and veggies—and behind them, their pickups and vans. That’s a lot of farmers logging lots of miles to get small loads from farm to market. “It may be more efficient, if you look at pounds transported, to send a semi-truck load of lettuce or celery from the Salinas Valley in California to Minneapolis, say, than it is for a little farmer to drive his pickup truck in,” says Ben Senauer, a professor of applied economics and former co-director of the Food Industry Center at the University of Minnesota. “We have an extremely efficient distribution system in this country.”
The most important thing to consider is the full-cycle carbon footprint, Senauer says. “How’s that product produced? How much fertilizer is being used? What kind of packaging does it have? Was it refrigerated? All this is using fossil fuel,” he explains. “And then, of course, the most wasteful thing of all is to let it rot. If you throw it out because you left it in the refrigerator too long, that is really wasteful.”
Local food is fresher, say boosters, and more nutritious. It’s hard to argue that point when gardens are exploding and farmers’ markets are in full swing. But how fresh is any food in midwinter, local or otherwise? The cheese squash that Susan and I ate had been stored since autumn. The honey and jam had been packed in jars months ago. The pasta from North Dakota wheat wasn’t going to be any less nutritious if we let it sit another week.
It’s true that the nutrients in fruits and vegetables begin to degrade as soon as the plant is harvested. Some, such as vitamin C and folate (a water-soluble B vitamin), break down quickly, especially in heat. But it’s not at all clear that going local is the key to finding freshness, vitamins, and minerals, says Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University. More important than the time or distance traveled, Nestle says, is the “cold chain” between harvest and table. “I’ve been in vegetable packing plants in California,” Nestle says. “They’re freezing. You have to wear heavy clothes in them.” The refrigeration retards spoilage, nutrient breakdown, and the growth of microorganisms.
In other words, where produce came from matters less than how it was transported and treated, Nestle says. Think of a sidewalk market in New York. “Boxes sit out on the sidewalk for hours in the middle of summer,” Nestle says. It doesn’t matter if the apples came from New Jersey or Washington or China—without refrigeration, the nutrients will dissipate. “There’s no stocking room, no place to put anything away.” Sounds like a
farmers’ market on a hot day, doesn’t it?
Still, provided the food hasn’t spoiled, nutritional value will remain, Nestle says. “It will still be edible. The differences will be small.”
Comments may be edited for length, clarity, or appropriateness.
Reader Comments: