A woman collects bottles near a polluted river in Dongxiang, China. One-third of China's rural population was reported to lack access to safe drinking water. Look at the red slime. And our country buys food from there?
Posted on 07/25/2007 12:35:02 AM PDT by bruinbirdman
There’s this organic carrot, and it’s doing my head in. It’s a nice carrot, as carrots go: fat, orange, with feathery green tufts on top. It has lived a blameless life in a field of joy, innocent of pesticides and artificial fertilisers. And now, here it is in the supermarket, rooting me on to take it home.
Only, here’s the thing: the carrot is from Israel. That’s nearly 2,500 miles away. If I buy it, I will take on its carbon footprint, garnishing every mouthful with the greenhouse gas that it has splurged into the atmosphere to be here today.
Can I live with that? Does the carrot’s organic worthiness trump the fact that it is has amassed more air miles than an MP on an international fact-finding mission? Or should I let it rot for thoughtlessly contributing to the destruction of the planet?
You see my problem. I’m food confused. And not just about vegetables. Fruit, meat, dairy – these days, everything is fraught with ethical complications. If I tried to follow all of them, I’d end up an oxygenarian – one of those people who eat nothing but air. The “good” food choices have proliferated like salmonella in an Edwina Currie egg – organic, Fairtrade, locally grown, free range, boutique, the Leaf mark, Red Tractor, Freedom Food, farm assured – some important, others just marketing spin. How am I meant to know what comes first in the pecking order?
Some choices are straightforward. Processed food clearly puts you on the fast track to hell. As for animal welfare, I won’t eat anything that hasn’t had weekly spa treatments. But organic? I used to think it was a no-brainer: good for the planet (no energy wasted on fertilisers and pesticides); good for the soil (it works with nature, rather than against it); good for the creatures that inhabit furrow and field (livestock, wildlife, farmers). It is also, arguably, good for us.
But when food miles enter the equation, organic quickly loses its halo. Getting an organic New Zealand apple from the tree to your lunchbox releases 235 times as much carbon as it saves. How depressing is that? And that’s before you even think about seasonality. We shouldn’t be eating apples in June, but we have turned luxuries into necessities, demanding strawberries in midwinter and nectarines in spring.
Of course, there are some things (citrus fruit, pineapples, bananas) that don’t grow in Britain, and I would be the last to suggest we could do without them. I’m also not sure I could survive without spices, olives, tea and coffee. But there have to be limits, such as not flying blueberries from Chile in December. And where do food miles and seasonality leave fair trade? Supporting Ethiopian coffee growers is one thing, but should we really be importing pears from South Africa, however benevolent our intentions?
Home-grown is no less problem-filled: your Isle of Wight tomatoes were probably grown in a greenhouse that burns more energy than a Chinese power station, and that supermarket potato has been taken by lorry to the other end of the country to be washed and packed. Sometimes it seems as if supermarkets set traps for unwary ecoshoppers. You know those fruit and veg packets with a picture of a happy supplier on the front – farmer Ted from Hampshire with his organic fruit? Turns out they aren’t always from his farm at all. Sometimes they aren’t even from his country.
Still, at least you know where you are with meat and dairy. Stick to organic and free range, and you can’t go wrong. Except that farm animals happen to be huge contributors to global warming. A field of farting cows produces enough centrally heated methane to drown out the sound of the icecaps crumbling. Then there’s all the packaging, the energy-hungry refrigeration, the distance between farm, slaughterhouse and supermarket depot.
A brilliant book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by the American journalist Michael Pollan, poses this dilemma: “When you can eat everything, what do you choose to eat?” Pollan works his way along the different food chains in the States, from the longest (which stretches from the cornfields of the Midwest through intensive cattle farming and processing plants to the fast-food outlets that blight every town and city in the country) to the shortest – a modern hunter-gathering mission in northern California, on which he shoots his own wild boar, harvests morels in the hills, picks cherries from the streets of San Francisco and makes bread with wild yeast captured from the air. In between, there is “big” organic – operations such as the American organic supermarket Whole Foods Market – and small-scale organic, local growers supplying local people and local businesses. The hunter-gathering wins hands down, although Pollan admits it’s not that practical on a daily basis. Local organic comes a close second.
Pollan has thought about what he eats; he has looked at the contradictions and worked out what matters. It’s probably pretty similar to what most of us want – food that tastes good and makes us happy, without troubling either our conscience or our health. The difference is that he has done something about it. We can blame the supermarkets and producers, but ultimately the responsibility for what we eat lies with us. The choices are confusing, and there is no perfect solution. But the worst thing we can do is do nothing.
There is a movement in America called the Locavores – people who eat, wherever possible, a diet harvested within a 100-mile radius (in cities, we’re talking farmers’ markets, allotments, small shops that prioritise local producers). Locavores have a mantra: “If not locally produced, then organic. If not organic, then family farm. If not family farm, then local business. If not local business, then fair trade.” I would add a line at the beginning: “If not local organic, then locally produced.” But I’ve decided the Locavore code of priorities is going to be my way through the food confusion.
That Israeli carrot will just have to go home with someone else.
WHAT IT ALL MEANS
A ‘GOOD’ FOOD JARGON BUSTER
ORGANIC
Crops are grown without conventional insecticides and artificial fertilisers. Poultry and livestock are raised without the use of growth hormones and with only limited use of antibiotics. There are also strict welfare controls. It takes at least two years for a farmer to get organic certification, which in Britain is awarded predominantly by the Soil Association. The downside? Research suggests that organic food may be no better nutritionally than nonorganic, although the jury is still out on the hidden health benefits of chemical-free farming.
FREE RANGE
Applies to meat, poultry and eggs. At best, it means animals are allowed to roam free and graze as they would naturally. In practice, free-range chickens can experience anything from a blissful existence grubbing in the soil to a life crammed in a barn with thousands of other birds, with only an occasional foray into the open air. In Britain, the main stipulation is that a free-range chicken must have continuous daytime access to open-air runs during at least half its life. Too vague to be totally trustworthy.
FREEDOM FOOD
Set up by the RSPCA, Freedom Food is all about animal welfare. It applies to eggs, meat, poultry, fish and dairy. All farm animals under the Freedom Food scheme must be reared according to strictly monitored RSPCA standards covering every stage of an animal’s life, from how it is fed to how it is slaughtered.
FAIRTRADE
Covers everything from fruit, coffee and tea to spices and wine. Awarded to products that guarantee fair pay and conditions to workers in the developing world, as well as supporting smallholder cooperatives. Ethically right on, but heavy on the food miles.
LEAF
Stands for Linking Environment and Farming. Not organic, but promotes environmentally aware and sustainable farming, whether in the UK or abroad. Clear-sighted about the dilemma involved in supporting developing-world farmers, but also an enthusiastic supporter of local producers.
RED TRACTOR
Run by Assured Food Standards, the Red Tractor applies to meat, fruit, veg, flour, sugar and dairy. Representing everyone from farmers to retailers, it aims to raise standards in British farming, from hygiene and safety to animal welfare and the environment. However, it scores poorly against the animal-welfare measures of the animal-rights group Compassion in World Farming.
If we would just irradiate our food we’d have a lot less problems.
I’m feeling nauseous. It must be the smell of manure emanating from this article that’s affecting me so badly.
A woman collects bottles near a polluted river in Dongxiang, China. One-third of China's rural population was reported to lack access to safe drinking water. Look at the red slime. And our country buys food from there?
That’s not red slime; that is PhotoShop. Looks like whoever forgot to paint the water in the top center.
I don’t like carrots; problem solved.
When Bugs Bunny eats it does he become organic?
If you want to be a really good environmentalist, just kill yourself. That’s what they ultimately want anyway.
Uh-kay...
Tomato soup ‘boosts fertility’
The Times of India | 28 Jul 2007, 2039 hrs IST | PTI
Posted on 07/28/2007 12:01:06 PM EDT by CarrotAndStick
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1872935/posts
I don’t want organic vegetables, they are grown in poop.
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