Buying local has value beyond nutrition

To the editor: Recently, while visiting the Rogowski farm, scanning the wealth of produce being offered, Susan and I were speaking about the benefits of buying locally. Remembering a recent article about use of fossil fuel to transport produce across our great but expansive continent, I thought about the amount of fuel being conserved by supplying local produce compared to food transported to our area. With global warming concerns and record fuel consumption affecting the planet, it begs our consideration to think about all aspects of the benefits of buying local produce and products. In the book, “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life” (2007 copyright from Harper Collins), writer Barbara Kingsolver explains that the “average food items on a U.S. grocery shelf has traveled farther than most families go on their annual vacation.” Further into the book, she states: “Americans put almost as much fossil fuel into our refrigerators as our cars;” each food item in a typical U.S. meal has traveled an average of 1,500 miles. To better understand this, think of a single calorie of a perishable fruit being transported from California to New York requiring 87 calories of fuel. You start to get an idea of the scale of energy use required to transport food across our country. This brings into consideration the issue of food quality. How much nutrition remains after such a long journey in a refrigerated trailer? Compare this with the high level of nutrition of food offered at the correct moment of ripeness not prematurely picked to survive the long journey cross-country or across borders. Local farm foods are offered with absolute minimal loss of nutrition based on the short time line from local farms to your family’s dinner plate. Consider this notation by Steven L. Hopp: “If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. That’s not gallons, but barrels.” A shocking realization that the simple act of buying local produce has value well beyond supporting our local community of hard working farms and providing our families with highly nutritional foods, but also that of practically eliminating the carbon footprint created by transport of food offering far less. The wise choice seems clear. Dr. Rob Kramer Kramer Nutrition Wellness Center of Warwick