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Food production, distribution and consumption has a major impact on the environment. Here is a four-point guide to responsible food shopping:
1 Buy fresh
2 Buy local
3 Buy organic
4 Buy seasonal
Or you could grow your own!
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Food
Food shopping can be a minefield for those who want to be eco-friendly. In the recent past there was a lot of focus on the need for organic food because of the harm that pesticides and chemical fertilisers were doing to soil and water quality. Now the focus has moved to ‘food miles’ which is the distance that food travels from the producer to your plate. The transport of food causes greenhouse gas emissions.
Even if you want to do the right thing there are issues about affordability, the availability of responsible options and also the simple fact that labelling is often inadequate. You may not know if your fresh carrots have come from Pukekohe, Ohakune or Invercargill.
There are no hard and fast rules but here is a four point guide that will help you make choices (assuming that you have a choice):
1 Fresh as opposed to processed
Fresh food is much healthier for you and for the environment. Any type of processing is likely to have some environmental impact. For example processing will probably add to food miles, use energy and add packaging – plastic, cardboard, polystyrene.
From a diet and health point of view it often adds things like salt, sugar, fat, colourings and preservatives which are not nutritious – they just help the food look better or last longer.
2 Local as opposed to imported
Put simply, food miles are the measure of the distance a food travels from field to plate. Agriculture and food now account for nearly 30 per cent of goods transported on our roads.
This travel adds substantially to the carbon dioxide emissions that are contributing to climate change - which is why food miles matter.
Food travels further these days partly because the centralised systems of supermarkets have taken over from local and regional markets. It defies common sense, but a pint of milk or a crop of potatoes can be transported many miles to be packaged at a central depot and then sent many miles back to be sold near where they were produced in the first place.
Also, because of the way the food processing industry works, ingredients travel around the country from factory to factory, before they make their way to the shops.
Then there’s imported produce. To take one example, strawberries are flown in from warmer climates to satisfy our desire for permanent dietary summertime, and air-freight has a far bigger impact on the environment than sea or road travel has. Having said this much, much more food is transported by road than by air.
Another reason for mounting food miles is comparative labour costs. For example, some British fish is now sent to China (where labour costs are much lower) for processing, then sent back to the UK to be sold.
Consumers are also directly responsible for increased food miles. We now travel further to do our shopping and use the car more often to do it. One solution is to do all your shopping for the week at once rather than in several trips.
3 Organic as opposed to non-organic
Organic produce is food produced with the following aims:
- to avoid the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides (unless approved for use in organic systems) and routine use of antibiotics and other medicines;
- to pay careful attention to animal welfare; and
- to preserve the environment and wildlife
Organic produce is available from supermarkets, local specialist shops, organic farm shops or via the Internet. There is conjecture about whether organic food is actually more nutritious than standard produce. Skeptics also argue that there is no real scientific evidence that pesticides and fertilisers are the cause of diseases e.g. cancer.
A food labelled 'organic' means it complies with laws and comes from registered producers, which have been approved by organic certification bodies. Since it is not always possible to make foods entirely from organic ingredients, organic manufacturers can use specific non-organic ingredients provided that organic ingredients make up at least 95 per cent of the food.
4 Seasonal as opposed to unseasonal
Out-of-season food is likely to be imported or otherwise it might have been grown locally in artificially-created growing environments. Either way energy is being expended just so we can have a diet that is a perpetually summertime one.
If you buy local food you are likely to be buying seasonal food. You can always preserve fruit and vegetables in jars.
5. Eat less meat
Perhaps the most sustainable choice you can make is to limit the amount of meat in your diet. Meat has a much larger ecological footprint than vegetables. A vegetarian diet requires less than 1,200 litres of water a day while a meat eater's diet uses up a whopping 15,000 litres a day. Individuals save more water by not eating a pound of beef than by not showering for an entire year.
6. Or you could grow your own food!
Obviously there will be many exceptions where you can't apply these rules. For example many dry goods – such as spices, tea, coffee, even flour – are not grown locally, they are processed, they may not be organic and they are independent of season.
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