Recently, the locavore movement to buy locally grown and produced foods has been gathering steam. The movement is touted as a way to reduce your environmental impact through what you eat.
There are multiple reasons why becoming a locavore is better for you and the environment. Knowing where and how your food is grown or produced makes it more likely that you can be sure eco-friendly practices went into their growing and harvesting. Eating produce that is in season ensures that it will be fresher and taste better than foods that were picked early and then traveled thousands of miles before ending up on your plate.
But what about the foods you love that aren’t grown nearby? Bananas, for example, aren’t commercially grown anywhere in the continental US. But don’t be so hasty to eliminate them from your diet. It’s well known that bananas are an excellent source of potassium, but they are also a superfood that can help lower your blood pressure, help protect bone health, promote kidney health and help protect against stomach ulcers.
Although some foods have to travel thousands of miles to reach you, it’s been estimated that transport only makes up 11 percent of the carbon ‘foodprint’ of foods, according to a 2008 study by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University.
Not to say the petroleum-based transport for foods isn’t a contributing factor to greenhouse emissions, but you don’t have to give up the foods you love simply because they had to travel the average distance of 4,000-5,000 miles. A bigger factor in a foods carbon foodprint is the way it is produced.
Cattle raised for beef contribute roughly one-fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases. In other words, meat production is harder on the environment than gas-guzzling SUVs. In addition, factory farming uses enormous amounts of energy, pollutes freshwater sources and requires vast amounts of agriculture production to support the feeding of livestock (which, by the way, might be put to better use to solve the world hunger problem, especially since livestock farming’s growing demand for corn and grain may drive up prices).
The only way to rectify or reduce the impact of livestock production is to eat less meat and consume less dairy. You don’t have to eliminate it from your diet entirely, but reducing your consumption by just 10 percent, or going vegetarian just one night a week can have a significantly positive impact. And the claim that humans ‘need’ meat doesn’t isn't as valid as it was once considered to be. Americans, especially, don’t ‘need’ as much meat as we eat according to federal government recommendations, and protein from vegetarian sources is a perfectly adequate substitute.
Switching to organic produce can help reduce your foods’ environmental impact because organically grown foods don’t use chemical pesticides, a major source of air and groundwater pollution. It has also been posited that its actually better to get foods like tomatoes (when out of season) transported from areas where they can be grown outside, rather than buying fruits and vegetables from more local sources that grow produce in heated greenhouses, which are major energy guzzlers. And always buy produce that isn’t pre-packaged in plastic.
If you are buying imported fruits, make sure you are helping to support the local community where the fruit was grown. Always buy fair-trade fruit. Go here to find out where you can buy fair-trade certified fruit near you.
Do what you can to reduce your carbon foodprint. You don’t have to entirely eliminate foods or change your diet if you try to use mostly local products and shop smart when it comes to imported produce. And if you’re ready to drastically reduce your environmental impact and go vegetarian, check out the GoVeg website for tips, recipes and articles.
Source: BecauseAction.com
