Buying local

You open the refrigerator and peer inside: organic grapes from Chile, bottles of German beer, crafted the same way for generations, and the best grass-fed, antibiotic-free lamb New Zealand has to offer -- all purchased with environmental responsibility in mind.

If we put the average consumer squarely at the geographic center of the United States -- Lebanon, Kansas -- the grapes will have traveled some 5,300 miles to reach your home. The beer, 4,800 miles. And the lamb chops, 7,600 miles.

Advertisement
They come by cargo ship, by train, by truck, burning fossil fuels all along the way. And then you drive them home from the grocery store.

It almost starts to make the pesticides look good.

The idea of "food miles" has taken hold in Britain, where Tesco, the dominant supermarket there, promised in January to add labels detailing a product's carbon footprint. In the United States, however, the so-called "100-Mile Diet," while only just moving in from the fringe, is getting something of a following.

At its core, those who adhere to it promise to get all their food from within a 100-mile radius of their homes. The diet's Web site, 100milediet.org, even lets you enter your ZIP code and draws the circle for you. Sounds good if you live in California or Florida, but if you live in New England and it's February and you're down to turnips and butternut squash, things can start to look grim -- especially if you're not much of a cook.

"You have to leave it to people's conscience on what they value more. I look for local more than organic. I think the overall ecological footprint of petroleum burned is probably bigger for the petroleum rather than the pesticides," said Jason Mark, who helps run Alemany Farm in San Francisco.

more from the AP