Does “Local” Food Source Really Mean “Local?”
A Nutritionist’s Farm-To-Table Analysis.
A 7-year-old boy sat at the breakfast table, complaining because his mother was pushing him to drink his milk. The child said, “what’s so special about milk anyway?” The mother replied, “do you know where that milk came from?” The child responded pridefully, “of course, out of the carton, mom!” “No,” the mother chided, “where did the carton of milk come from?” The child thought for a moment and with a quizzical look on his face said, “the grocery store…everyone knows that!” “Ok,” said the mom, “let’s keep going. Where did the grocery store get the carton of milk?” The child sat still, pondering the question before him. “Ummm, I guess it was delivered by a truck.” “Yes,” agreed mom, “but where did the truck get the milk?” The child had no idea. Honestly, neither did the mother. Not specifically, anyway.
How many of us can accurately and specifically answer the question “where does the milk come from, or the apple in your fruit bowl, or the head of lettuce in your refrigerator, or the bag of rice in your cupboard, or the frozen dinner in your freezer?” In other words, what’s your source? The truth is that we have become so far removed from the source of the food on our tables that most of us have no idea where our food originates from and, I suspect, most people don’t have many thoughts about it either. For many of us, our food simply comes from the grocery store. End of story. It’s what we know and we never think to ask what it took to get our food from the farm to the table.
In this article, as a nutritionist I have set about to take a look at specifically where some of my food comes from and I must say that the task was more challenging than I had anticipated. It’s not enough to say I shop at Whole Foods, or Safeway, or Sprouts Farmers Market. How do the items I decide to purchase find their way to the grocery store shelf and where might the ingredients come from that go into these items?
I began by keeping a diet diary of everything I consumed for three days, including where items were purchased and from where they originated, beginning with looking at product labeling for the company name and address, or distributor information, and any other information I could glean about product origin. I then did a dietary analysis of each of the three days, as well as an average of the three days, to determine the nutrition received from the food I had eaten. The next step was to create maps, one for the United States and one for International origins, to demonstrate distance and attempt to track the miles my food had traveled from the company, distributor, or farm to reach my home in Denver. The results were eye-opening and frankly, quite shocking!
Buying “Local.”
In the entire three days diary, I discovered only four products that could be defined as “local,” meaning they were produced here in the Denver metro area. The first was my tofu made by Denver Tofu Company located on Blake Street, driven in a truck to my local Whole Foods, where I then purchased it and drove it to my home (a total trip of 3.6 miles from production to table). I got excited when I saw “3.6 miles” and I wanted to pat myself on the back that I was helping the environment by buying local. I was minimizing the impact on the environment by not contributing to buying things shipped long distances, using vast amounts of fuel, just to get some tofu for my stir fry…but wait, on further inspection of the Denver Tofu website I discovered that the Nigari (a naturally occurring mineral extracted from sea water that is used to coagulate the soy milk into tofu) is actually acquired from Japan…so I add another 5,812 miles (by air, sea, and land) to acquire the Nigari that goes into making my “local” tofu. Bummer. Not so local after all!
The second “local” product was a Larabar I ate for a snack on day three. Larabars are made by Small Planet Foods in Denver, driven in a truck to my Whole Foods where I purchased one and drove it to my home (a total trip of 1.7 miles…woohoo!). According to their website, “this tangy and tart treat combines dates, cashews, almonds and real lemons.” However, I’m unable to discern the origin of these particular ingredients, except I know for sure that cashews (the Portuguese name for the fruit from the caju tree) are not grown in the United States since they can only be grown in tropical climates. I don’t know if they are getting their cashews from Brazil or another South American country, or somewhere else tropical, but automatically I know that this product cannot be defined as local if it takes ingredients from another country to make the product. Bummer. Not local!
The third “local” product was my Silk Soymilk and Silk Soy Coffee Creamer, which are produced by WhiteWave Foods out of Broomfield, Colorado. They were driven in a truck from Broomfield to my local Whole Foods where I purchased them and drove them to my house (a total trip of 21.3 miles from production to table). Not bad, not bad! Then I go to the WhiteWave Foods website and I discover that I can actually trace the actual soybeans that went into my soymilk to discover the source of the farm. I enter the code from my soymilk carton and discover that my soybeans were grown in Wayne County, Iowa…so I add another 687 miles to acquire the soybeans that go into making my “local” soymilk. Bummer. Also not so local after all!
The fourth and final “local” product was my whole spelt tortillas made from Rudi’s Organic Bakery in Boulder, Colorado. The bread was put on a truck, delivered to my Whole Foods store, purchased by me and driven to my home (a total trip of 32.8 miles). However, I’m getting kind of wise to the fact that a “local” company doesn’t necessarily mean “local” to Colorado source of food. I do a search of Rudi’s Organic Bakery website and cannot find the source for the ingredients in my whole spelt tortillas. They do refer to their environmental initiatives, but only specify these as zero-waste and recycling policies. I also did an internet search and could not find any information about where Rudi’s gets the ingredients for their products. I sent Rudi’s an email inquiry and got this response from Tim in Customer Service: “We purchase our grains from US vendors. They source the grains we use from the US and Canada.” Definitely not local! I did find an internet article that said once Rudi’s finds an ingredient they like for their products, they make sure they have several different distributors for the ingredient in case something happens to one grower’s crops, etc. Given this policy, I suspect their ingredients for will never be all that “local.”
Outside Colorado.
Products I purchased that came from outside Colorado originated from eight (8) different states (Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Texas), and from these 8 different states, 15 different cities. The closest source was Nogales, Arizona; the farthest source was Orlando, Florida. In tallying up all the miles my individual food products traveled from these 8 different states and 15 different cities, my food logged ~19,315 miles. I remind you this is in just THREE DAYS worth of food! I’ve done a little traveling in my time, but admittedly, my food gets more sight-seeing of the United States than I do! Unfortunately, it probably can’t see much from the inside of a tractor-trailer. There’s nothing local about these products and after examination of “local” products, I realize there is more than meets the eye as far as sourcing.
Internationally.
An examination of several of my food labels revealed the words “product of” followed by a foreign country, such as Mexico, Thailand, Japan, Chile and Ecuador. I did the math and the total miles these products would have traveled to Denver is an astonishing ~24,274 miles (by air, sea, and land). I did some more math and added the mileage for sources locally, nationally and internationally together and I got a whopping ~43,689 miles! Again, this accounts for only THREE DAYS worth of food. It’s mind-blowing what impact I, as one person, can have on the environment if it takes 43,689 miles of travel to get my food from source to table! I’m aware this number is simply an estimate (it’s likely much higher). The challenge is in being able to trace every ingredient in every product back to source and then to table. It is truly a daunting task!
Nutritional Perspective.
In my diet analysis for the three days, I find that although my food may not have been good for environmental impact to get from source to table, it did provide me with very good nutrition. Admittedly, it can be extremely difficult to obtain the full range of nutrients I found in my three-day diet analysis (every nutrient was accounted for) with only local food sourcing. The problem with relying fully on local sourcing is the limits with which food is available for a well-balanced diet, particularly in different seasons, and particularly in Colorado in the winter. By attending to my nutritional needs based on what is available to me in my local store, I am able to gather items that provide me with a broad-range of nutrients for a balanced diet. If I look specifically at the produce I consumed in the three days, to my knowledge, none of my produce was local. I say “to my knowledge” because if you purchase things like root vegetables from the bins at Whole Foods, you don’t know the origin of the product. Many fruits and vegetables come with source labels, but during my three days, I could not account for all of my vegetable sources. The ones I could account for were not local, with most coming from California. Local is relative in some cases. The western states might be relatively local to Colorado. However, I think I can do better than I have been at pay attention to food source!
Awareness Demands Change.
I can’t change anything I am not aware of, but once I become aware that something needs to change, I feel I have a duty to bring about that change. It’s how I live my life. As a nutritionist who is also interested in lessening the impact I have on the environment, this analysis has guided me toward something I’ve wanted to do for a long time…join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) or Farm Share Program. I have already set about doing some research on CSA’s in the Denver area with the goal of having fresh, local organic produce in my home by the end of the month. If this article inspires you, I would encourage you to follow suit. Pay attention to what you are eating and where it comes from! Track your own food for 2-3 days to see if your “local” is really “local.” If you are not already committed to a local CSA, get on the internet and seek out the local farm shares in your area. By doing so, you are doing your part to support local farming and reduce your footprint on the overall environment. As we have seen from my three days’ impact, every little bit counts!
To Your Health!
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