Why are Food Miles bad? Convince me...

[flack]

Consider myself a 'greenie' in most respects, but the foodmiles issue doesn't strike a chord.

Especially since I went shopping with a friend who said "No" to green beans grown in Kenya, but he still buys bananas, tea, coffee, bread made from Canadian wheat (long list of other stuff all grown abroad)...

Why are bananas ok but not green beans? DS is a fruit fiend, so we are currently buying him Belgian strawberries which may become Israeli strawberries, soon -- why is this so bad?

I don't want to give up orange juice, Brazil Nuts, soya, peanuts, lentils, rice, avocados, olives, coconut, chocolate, haricot beans (baked beans)...

I'm all for using locally produced food when I can easily source it -- especially stuff like meat or milk. Less-travelled food probably tastes better for being fresh... But I still suspect the food miles issue gets greatly exagerated.

So... tell me why I'm wrong .

Bananas are shipped as are lots of other produce but green beans and other fresh fruit and veg are flown.

yes its the air travel that is the worst due to the amount of fuel per kg of product required to move them from a -> b

some things you cant source form over here... fair enough.... but why by aspargus from half way around the world when its in season here?

Well, you're not wrong in wandering, as produce sellers are not currently very good at explaining how the food gets here. And you're not wrong in wanting to feed your som a good diet.
It's just that certain foods are flown, which as NannyL and carmenere explained, is very fuel guzzling and therefore largely increases our carbon footprint. Certain things we eat don't grow very locally, eg, grown up north so are driven down to the south. But this is nowhere as bad as insisting fresh pineapples and mangos weekly.
I think just do as you are doing by getting local produce wherever you can, and being aware of avoiding expensive tropical fruits flown from all over, but still allow some foreign food such as bananas. Variety is good, but increasing airmile demand is not.

As I understand it, the point is really the pointlessness of so many of the food miles.
If it's just about eating things you can't get locally, fine, but in actual fact a lot of food miles are spent importing things we can grow perfectly well here, like apples.

There are also other benefits to buying locally - apart from freshness, there's the fact that supporting your local agriculture is wise because firstly, that means money going back into your local economy, and secondly, should things go wrong internationally (financially, politically or with the climate) we don't want to lose the ability to produce our own food. There are also other specific reasons why you might want to buy local - eg animal welfare standards here are higher than almost anywhere in the world.

yep - why buy apples from USA, S.Africa or Chile (availabel in my local Morrisons today) when perfectly good UK apples were available.

I dont so muych have a pron with food miles though as how those foods are gorwn. Who knows how the owrkers are dealt with in Chile or Thailand or Kenya ot Guatemal (all up for selling me green beans, asparagus or mange tout today) were treated,

there are a lot of things to balance up with ethical-ness. But I but fairtrade bananas and coffee and chocolate because despite the food miles, people are benefitting. I choose not to buy Kenyan mange tout as the food miles plus the exploitation of humanity is too much for me.

So you're saying... avoid the air-freighted items if possible (I presume that's out-of-season stuff with short storage life?), and avoid the items from afar if they are in season locally...

This sounds very complex to get right. Not sure I'd know what was air-freighted, what wasn't. It's hard to find locally grown apples in May, or local carrots in February. So they seem to come from places like New Zealand and Zimbabwe.

Flack - the easiest approach is not to try to avoid things, but try positively to buy anything local/British when you can, IYSWIM. Or get an organic box from a company that says it tries to source locally where possible, and let them do the work for you.

Aren't lots of the shipped products then ripened using carbon-producing heating techniques.....? (Runs away quickly)

It'd be great to have a real economy that took all this into account.

Regarding the NZ thing... I totally agree that buying UK apples is best, but in some cases it's actually more environmentally friendly to get stuff shipped from NZ rather than, say, Holland, as NZ food is often grown outside in the sun rather than in Co2 guzzling artificial conditions. Cows don't need to be kept in heated sheds and fed 'feed' in the winter for example. It's complicated isn't it.

Why not grow bananas ON boats?