The GOOD Blog has a great post on the source of a typical taco’s ingredients, done as a study by the UrbanLab at the California College of the Arts. The taco was purchased off of a local taco truck. The findings were pretty astounding. The ingredients to make one taco, had travelled a combined total of 64,000 miles, which is roughly equal to 2.5 times the circumference of the earth. Despite there being rice growers in California, the rice came from Thailand. Some ingredients, such as the cheese and salt, were reasonably local, but the spices travelled 15,000 miles combined.
That’s pretty amazingly dysfunctional, especially if you realize that back in the days of the Depression, only around 80 years ago, more than 80% of all food and goods came from within a 200 mile radius of the purchase point. The globalization of our food supply is wasting energy, causing a buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere unnecessarily, and having other side effects, such as some of the latest issues with food safety.
We’re running out of oil and don’t yet have a replacement for all we use. Which means that this totally dysfunctional and unsustainable distribution system has got to be phased out as quickly as possible. We all need to be aware of what we’re eating and where it came from.
I’m one of the lucky ones, since I have a farmer’s market nearby where most of the produce, meats, cheeses and dairy products have been produced within a three state radius, with most of it from Pennsylvania farmers. And there are still a fair few small Pennsylvania farmers, though the big conglomerates have made inroads in the last 20 years in putting them out of business. Some things I buy, like flour and nuts, travel further, but I do try to keep most of my purchasing within reason, and on those rare trips I make to the supermarket, I go to a local chain that sources a lot of the meat, dairy, produce and eggs locally, and try to stay out of the center aisles, since everything in a bag or a box is guaranteed to be sourced globally.
But friends of mine in NJ don’t have it so lucky, since there are few farm markets and their food chains are part of nationwide conglomerates.
What’s the answer? Awareness is a start. Making some changes to your own lifestyle is next, such as growing a garden. But it doesn’t stop there. We have to look at all the bits of the supply chain, not just for food, but for everything we buy. If you want to learn more about our dysfunctional system, I suggest checking out The Story Of Stuff. There’s a term that’s been coined for the attitude we have to form. We all have to try to become locavores.
