3: Making Great Green Diet Decisions in Visual Studio .NET

Draw QR-Code in Visual Studio .NET 3: Making Great Green Diet Decisions

Despite all the arguments about what food is best in terms of health, there s agreement from an environmental point of view that buying local food is best At the heart of all the arguments for eating locally grown produce is the need to cut down on what have become known as food miles, the distance food travels from where it s produced to your plate Transportation over what can be thousands of miles results in a lot of carbon emissions The food Americans eat travels an average of 1,500 miles before it gets to the plate In addition, food that travels a long distance and spends time in storage has fewer nutrients than locally produced food However, sometimes buying locally isn t an option, particularly when you re talking about foods that aren t grown in the United States Enter Fairtrade, a trade program that works to make sure that Producers in the developing world get fair prices for what they produce Producers have reasonable working conditions The processes used in the developing world are sustainable Buying Fairtrade items raises the issue of how far the food has traveled to get to you Is it greener to buy the Fairtrade item that may have been transported from the other side of the world but that supports the developing world, or the local item that isn t benefiting the developing world s economy but that contributed far fewer greenhouse gases to the atmosphere A green lifestyle has room for both: Buy local when you can, and buy Fairtrade when you can t buy local

Food that flies thousands of miles from other countries is just part of the food miles problem Even American produce can travel many hundreds of miles before it gets to your plate Retailers buy from producers and often transport the food over the road to big packaging plants, to huge storage facilities, to distribution centers, and finally to the stores from which you drive it home To cut down on those miles, you have to buy locally

Because of concerns for animal welfare, and because eating food produced using pesticides and other chemicals may cause health problems, the demand for organic food has increased to such an extent that big businesses are interested in its money-making potential Most people have limited time to shop, so large grocery stores are the convenient option They enable you to get everything under one roof and do a big shop every once in a while, reducing the miles you travel to get groceries

Keep in mind, though, that many large grocery stores tend to treat food grown throughout the United States as if it s locally produced Even if a cow starts its life in a farm just one mile away from you, the meat will travel to storage and distribution centers miles from home and will have traveled a large distance before it gets back to your grocery store Big businesses have greater buying power than small competitors, but they also transport food farther to storage and distribution facilities, increasing factory and transport emissions and reducing the nutritional value of the stored food Also take into account the impact that big business has on local business, particularly small, locally owned specialty grocery stores and farmers markets Take a careful look at where you shop If your nearby chain grocery store brings in as much local and organic produce as possible, then by all means support it But if it doesn t, then look for other options The larger stores buying power may translate into lower food costs on the shelves, but do what you can within your budget to purchase more locally and/or organically produced food If you re unable to buy food from a farmers market or directly from a local farmer, head for smaller specialty stores and co-ops, many of which sell organic and/or local products Co-ops are exactly what they sound like: cooperative organizations in which people come together as members to take advantage of the buying power that results from being more than just one individual or one family Members usually pool money in some way and thus become member-owners of the organization, with a say in how it runs and a share in dividends if any money is left over at the end of the year Co-ops can be informal, such as when several families pool funds in order to buy from a co-op food warehouse, or they can be more formal with hundreds or even thousands of members When it comes to food, many have a mandate to support local, organic, or natural food producers You can find co-ops throughout the country through the Coop Directory Service at wwwcoopdirectoryorg Some local shops or co-ops may sell only organically produced and labeled food; others combine organic food with health food, vitamin and mineral supplies, and other well-being and fitness-related products These kinds of stores are popping up everywhere and are increasingly moving into many large shopping centers thanks to the demand for organic food products Wherever you shop, check with the store to see how local local is The distance that experts consider local varies some say 12 miles; some say 100; some say within your own watershed or climatic region Decide for yourself what s practical given your geographic location (If a label says locally grown, it generally indicates something within 250 miles) If you live in the northern part of the country, of course, buying local agricultural products during the winter is very difficult; in that case, local may mean produce grown within the United States in winter but produce grown much closer to home in summer Local definitely does not mean buying strawberries from Chile in December