Locavores: Necessary or Bonkers?
The latest, and arguably most ridiculous, food trend includes going back to our roots and eating local, healthy, fresh food. As much as suburbanites hate to admit it, we aren’t acclimated to “roughing it”, and a batch of fresh (brown?!) eggs from the farmer’s market is as close as we get to it. But. is all of this really necessary? Among the many implications of becoming a locavore, the key issues include how the economy is negatively affected and what local food really does to our bodies.
Imagine the journey of a single tomato. Picked, cleaned, shipped hundreds to thousands of miles, being tossed through the many hands and boxes of our produce industry, these little guys see a lot. Every step of their journey …show more content…
It is easy to associate ‘fresh and local’ with ‘healthy’, but that isn’t always the case. In fact, “that doesn’t mean it is necessary to eat locally in order to be healthy… the global megamart can easily meet all the body’s needs.” (Source B) Consumers think that paying more for organic, home-grown kale is radically different than kale bought at supermarkets. Surprisingly for some people, most supermarkets these days offer most foods and produce in organic options. The differences between locally-bought food and supermarket-bought foods are marginal.
Locavores will argue that “local food just plain tastes better,” (Source A) and that’s fine. However, it doesn’t make the food you’re eating any better for you, and the cost of transportation for local eating actually costs much more on an economic scale: “The critical measure here is not food miles but [food] per gallon.” (Source C)
All in all, local food is, at the surface, a wonderful and innocent idea. However, it is obvious that being a locavore comes with many implications regarding the economy and nutrition, and has more negative effects than positive ones. Although this trend exists in many parts of the world, they too are learning the consequences of eating
The latest, and arguably most ridiculous, food trend includes going back to our roots and eating local, healthy, fresh food. As much as suburbanites hate to admit it, we aren’t acclimated to “roughing it”, and a batch of fresh (brown?!) eggs from the farmer’s market is as close as we get to it. But. is all of this really necessary? Among the many implications of becoming a locavore, the key issues include how the economy is negatively affected and what local food really does to our bodies.
Imagine the journey of a single tomato. Picked, cleaned, shipped hundreds to thousands of miles, being tossed through the many hands and boxes of our produce industry, these little guys see a lot. Every step of their journey …show more content…
It is easy to associate ‘fresh and local’ with ‘healthy’, but that isn’t always the case. In fact, “that doesn’t mean it is necessary to eat locally in order to be healthy… the global megamart can easily meet all the body’s needs.” (Source B) Consumers think that paying more for organic, home-grown kale is radically different than kale bought at supermarkets. Surprisingly for some people, most supermarkets these days offer most foods and produce in organic options. The differences between locally-bought food and supermarket-bought foods are marginal.
Locavores will argue that “local food just plain tastes better,” (Source A) and that’s fine. However, it doesn’t make the food you’re eating any better for you, and the cost of transportation for local eating actually costs much more on an economic scale: “The critical measure here is not food miles but [food] per gallon.” (Source C)
All in all, local food is, at the surface, a wonderful and innocent idea. However, it is obvious that being a locavore comes with many implications regarding the economy and nutrition, and has more negative effects than positive ones. Although this trend exists in many parts of the world, they too are learning the consequences of eating