printHaving just feasted on an excellent, fresh, Chilean orange, here is a reminder, via the one and only John Stossel, that eating organic, local produce must not turn into an irrational fetish. Read “Math Lessons for Locavores”:
the local food movement now threatens to devolve into another one of those self-indulgent — and self-defeating — do-gooder dogmas. Arbitrary rules, without any real scientific basis, are repeated as gospel by “locavores,” celebrity chefs and mainstream environmental organizations. Words like “sustainability” and “food-miles” are thrown around without any clear understanding of the larger picture of energy and land use.
The result has been all kinds of absurdities. For instance, it is sinful in New York City to buy a tomato grown in a California field because of the energy spent to truck it across the country; it is virtuous to buy one grown in a lavishly heated greenhouse in, say, the Hudson Valley.
The statistics brandished by local-food advocates to support such doctrinaire assertions are always selective, usually misleading and often bogus. This is particularly the case with respect to the energy costs of transporting food. One popular and oft-repeated statistic is that it takes 36 (sometimes it’s 97) calories of fossil fuel energy to bring one calorie of iceberg lettuce from California to the East Coast. That’s an apples and oranges (or maybe apples and rocks) comparison to begin with, because you can’t eat petroleum or burn iceberg lettuce.
It is also an almost complete misrepresentation of reality, as those numbers reflect the entire energy cost of producing lettuce from seed to dinner table, not just transportation. Studies have shown that whether it’s grown in California or Maine, or whether it’s organic or conventional, about 5,000 calories of energy go into one pound of lettuce. Given how efficient trains and tractor-trailers are, shipping a head of lettuce across the country actually adds next to nothing to the total energy bill.
No California tomatos allowed in New York. In West Hollywod, Ca. they are about to ban all clothes made from animal skins, hides, hair etc. I assume this not only includes fur but also wool and the like. Of course I understand how California, a land of true fruit loops, can elect such space cadets to office but the madness seems to permeate the entire country. I wish I could draw some conclusion here but I’m not smart enough so I’ll just sit back and marvel at the fools we are electing to office.
Is this really happening? It sounds like something out of a whacky adventure-in-the-future movie.
James, you are absolutely correct in your proposed action of “just sit back and marvel at the fools…”
I truly doubt that even 5% of the entire Congress and Senate officials – not their Staff, they themselves – have the education to understand the following:
http://www.cambridge.org/…/4761_15.%20Global%20vs.%20local.ppt
The LINK shows why LOGISTICIANS and SUPPLY & DEMAND CHAIN PROFESSIONALS, along with related Marketing, Economics, and others in the food supply business earn good livings.
http://www.foodlogistics.com/
Politicians – stay out of the private marketplace…you have no clue to the harm you do.
Sorry…forgot this LINK:
http://www.sdcexec.com/
Enjoy the reading.
Actually, in the beginning, people only ate manna from heaven until Agriculture was invented by President Abraham Lincoln:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Agriculture
Even then, food was only the luxury of the super-rich until President Franklin Delano Roosevelt came up with the first food stamp program:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_Nutrition_Assistance_Program
which provide food to people who did not get sick … this is because anyone who got sick died prior to President Lyndon Johnson inventing Medicare and Medicaid:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid
Unfortunately for the LOCAL FOOD industry, government sometimes makes mistakes as when President Lyndon Johnson invented transporation!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Transportation