Step Away from the Banana

I haven't been blogging as much as I'd like to lately. It's not because I'm not thinking about it or because I have run out of topics ... actually it's the opposite. As I do more and more research, I get sucked into the wealth of interesting information out there. I want to draw it all together somehow, introduce you to a few interesting articles you may not have found, and then point out interesting conclusions or questions that were left out.

But there is too much. So instead, I just keep reading and thinking...

This week's fascinating topic? The economics of locavorism.

After reading the New York Times' column by James McWilliams on the topic of not-so-free range pigs, about which I wrote last week, I found more interesting columns from him and also from the Freakonomics blog in The New York Times.

The theme - eating local is not a panacea to all of our environmental and economic woes. A few of the major points:

• Food miles travelled is not necessarily an indicator of the carbon footprint of a food. For example, lamb raised in New Zealand on their abundant source of clover and then shipped to Britain, requires about 1/4 of the energy of lamb raised in Britain which must be supplemented with feed. Therefore, while the distance a food has traveled is a nice metric to follow, the environmentally minded consumer must actually think about the entire life cycle of the item to determine the least impactful choice.¹
• Most places are not suited to growing a diverse, healthy diet year round. ² Therefore, the amount of fossil fuel and water that must be devoted to producing such a diet locally is offset by any reduction in fossil fuel spent on transporting it from a more suitable climate. ³ Actually, I guess this a slightly different statement of the previous point. Oh well, I like it. Maybe I should edit more, but tonight I'm not going to ;)
• What about economics of scale? Large scale farming of only tomatoes is efficient in a way that cannot be reproduced by small farmers or home-gardeners, regardless of whether the climate is suited to growing tomatoes.
• Consumers would have to adopt a radically different diet if they were to avoid, for instance, bananas, which can't even grow in this country.
• How local is local enough? If everyone agreed to eat food grown within a 100 mile radius, it wouldn't be possible to feed all of New York City. Does this mean that everyone should leave?

While all of these are certainly interesting points, I'm left, as usual, with more questions than answers.

How sustainable long-term is large scale farming? How much soil is depleted and resources are required by repeatedly farming the same tomato crop on the same plot of soil?

What about the non-economic value of a fresh, varied diet? While variety can certainly be added to a diet by importing tropical fruits from abroad, it can also be added by redeveloping countless heirloom plant varieties not sold in supermarkets. Fruit and veg (and meat) sold in supermarkets is bred for two things, consistency and yield. Whether grown locally or not, a diet consisting year round of the same single variety each of strawberries, carrots, potatoes, spinach, apples and bananas may be efficient but I doubt if it provides us with the complex set of nutrients you can get from experimenting with regional varieties. Local farmers aren't in it for the efficiency, that's true. They're in it for exactly this inefficient diversity, among other things. And I like that.

Ok, ok, each of these columns raises some interesting points, and while I don't wholeheartedly agree, I definitely have some things to think about.

But geez, who are these extremists to which these columns refer? Yes, Barbara Kingsolver managed to do it, and write about it (is her book published on locally sourced paper?), but what about the rest of us? According to those close to me, I am BY FAR the most extreme local eater of anyone I know. And yes, I do eat bananas. And I only feel a little guilty about it. Ok, maybe a lot. But I still do it.

¹ Food That Travels Well, James McWilliams. The New York Times: August 6, 2007

² Do We Really Need a Few Billion Locavores, Stephen J. Dubner. The New York Times: June 9, 2008.

³ Will the Anti-Locavorism Never End, Stephen J. Dubner and James McWilliams. The New York Times: August 26, 2008.

Free Range Pork is Safer, Right?

The New York Times carried quite an interesting op-ed piece from James McWilliams this weekend disputing the safety of pork from free-range pigs. The article is interesting and short, so I won't analyze it in detail here, but I will summarize a few of his more interesting points:

• A study was done last year to test the levels of dangerous pathogens in more than 600 anti-biotic free, free-range pigs. Levels of pathogens causing toxoplasmosis and salmonella were found to be substantially higher than in confined pigs, and 2 pigs were found to have the dangerous parasite trichina, which has been eradicated from confined pigs.
• Free-range pigs can come into contact with dangerous contaminants from which confined pigs are protected, specifically rats, cats and contaminated soil.
• Free-range does not mean wild. It is somewhere halfway between confined and wild. Since animal husbandry began, humans have been searching for ways to control meat production such that it is safe and consistent - this is not a new practice. Much of the process followed in industrial pork production is to protect against exactly the diseases identified in the study.
• While free-range may make the pork taste better, and make us feel better because the pigs are supposedly leading a more natural lifestyle, ultimately it is another form of meat production, one which disregards the dangers against which the confinement of pigs is trying to protect and which isn't really close at all to pigs natural wild state.

I found this article interesting because it calls into question my assumption that free range is always the best choice for meat. I find especially intriguing the idea that any form of meat production, as opposed to hunting meat, is industrial, no matter how PC it seems. Here are a few of the questions I was left with:

• What exactly does free-range mean for the pigs in the cited study? Like beef, I'd guess there are vastly differing environments for how free-range pigs are raised and fed. Is there a concept of pastured vs. free-range for pigs?
• When compared with free-range pigs, what issues surround confined pork production? You may remember the recent Irish pork recall due to the contamination of a small amount of pig feed. (By the way, I hope I'm never forced to eat anything called "feed." I like my food to have names. Just a thought.)
• Is any kind of pork consumption, short of meat from hunted pigs, safe to eat? Just why are there so many religious and social taboos against eating pork as opposed to other meats? Could this be an evolutionary safety mechanism?

These are interesting questions that I'd like to begin exploring. I've been steering clear of pork for a while, and until I better inform myself, I will probably continue to do so.

A few last points:

The La Vida Locavore blog carried an interesting response to this piece that claims the study referenced was funded by the National Pork Board (although I can't figure out how this was determined). The article and comments show that once again, this is a complex subject that requires detailed research on the part of any consumer striving for a complete understanding of what he or she is eating.

James McWilliams has a book coming out soon entitled Just Food: How Locavores Are Endangering the Future of Food and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly. I can't wait, but I really hope this doesn't mean that I have to reconsider some of my opinions ;)

Exploring the Term Organic

Just wanted to point out an interesting article in today's New York Times by Mark Bittman. In it he discusses the difference between eating certified organic and eating "real" food and why being organic doesn't necessarily equate to being healthy or environmentally friendly. He does a nice job in a short space of summarizing a few of the issues that are causing people to rethink industrially produced food, organic or not, although as he points out, unfortunately not enough people are rethinking it yet.