Preview

Local Foods Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
957 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Local Foods Essay
Why Buying Locally Grown Food is a Good Thing

Just as a great meal satisfies the soul and nourishes the body, the way in which we

‘create’ and buy food can influence our society. Which food ethic is healthier and beautiful to the environment and even to the whole planet? Proponents for eating local food, claims that you will get exceptional taste much better than food shipped from long distances from other states or countries. The movement also impacts on the safety of the foods since the less time there is between your food’s source and your table, the lesser chance of their being contamination. Also knowing where your food comes from and grows it, you know a lot more of that food and the condition. Lastly, the argument that eating locally will affect the environment in that less foods being transported means fewer greenhouse gas emissions. Others believe ‘food’ to be a cultural experience; we are connected with a revelation of flavors. Modern technology has made the world a small place where chefs import what ever they desire to fill the menu all year long. Chef Gordon , writer of the book ("Fusion: A Culinary Journey") points out the carbon footprint of some imported foods could be lower if they have grown in near by location. First of all, locally grown food is much fresher and has better taste than food mixed in

a pot or shipped long distances from other states and countries. Just think

about the difference and what you would choose between picked lettuce fresh from

yesterday and lettuce picked from last week placed in the factory and sealed up in plastic.

You can.

“Rich Pirog of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture reports that the average fresh food item on our dinner table travels 1,500 miles to get there”

Same with fresh corn in season tastes best when you haven’t eaten any in 9 or 10

months, long enough for it’s taste to be awakened with the first bite of the season. Buying foods

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    1. Supporting point: ingredients for the food is bought two or three days in advance so…

    • 984 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Essay Analysis

    • 573 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Many Americans are discovering the value of locally or own grown food. By doing this, they help reduce the carbon print while at the same time supporting local business (Elton). The general concern posed by the writer in this article is how the local-foods movement is gradually becoming a global trend. As the author sites how the movement is steadily growing, he also expresses his concerns regarding it. Without proper standards to oversee the movement, the author expresses fear that it will decline sharply.…

    • 573 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    ON BUYIGN LOCAL SUMMARY

    • 1183 Words
    • 5 Pages

    “Buying local” is such a useful and efficient way of living in order to better the entire world as a whole. Global warming, pollution, and dwindling fossil fuel resources create harmful wastes that are causing many problems in the atmosphere. Smaller farms would begin to have an advantage over larger farms across the country. The economically, efficient factors will start to increase. Spriggs clarifies that buying local can reverse the trend towards a positive farming outlook (Spriggs 94). The advantages of “buying local” outnumber the few downfalls by a landslide.…

    • 1183 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Toulmin method contains a claim, evidence, and qualifier. The claim is the author’s assertion, the evidence supports the claim, and the qualifier states the author’s assurance towards their claim. McWilliams claims that people who look to nearby farmers for their diet because of transportation “Overlook other energy-hogging factors in food production” (McWilliams, 2009, para. 1). The author believes that buying local produce can hurt the planet more than it can help it. To validate this statement, the author provides studies that show the real cost of shrinking the distance that food travels. For example, McWilliams provides the reader with a 2006 academic study that shows that “It made more environmental sense for a Londoner to buy lamb shipped from New…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Summary of “On Buying Local” by Katherine Spriggs Having the luxury of eating any fruit or vegetable at any time is amazing but it can come at a cost to our bodies and our environment. Buying local is a way we can counteract this because local farms are more sustainable and overall better for the environment. The United States play a huge part in global warming. But this is an international problem and many companies are putting billions of pounds of pesticides and chemicals into our water, air, and soil.…

    • 292 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Locavores Research Paper

    • 461 Words
    • 2 Pages

    eating locally give fruits and vegetables a longer time to ripen, which concludes in the product…

    • 461 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Locavore Dbq

    • 728 Words
    • 3 Pages

    An analysis by Rich Pirog, who works for the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, reveals that “transportation accounts for only 11% of food’s carbon footprint” (Source C). The way locavores manipulate the calculation of food miles to fit their argument is highly inaccurate. For example, “a shipper sending a truck with 2,000 apples over 2,000 miles would consume the same amount of fuel per apple as a local farmer who takes a pickup 50 miles to sell 50 apples” (Source C). Eating locally is not a solution to lessening food’s carbon footprint, “[t]he critical measure [in this scenario] is not food miles, but rather apples per gallon” (Source C). He further claims that “[a] fourth of the energy required to produce food is expended in the consumer’s kitchen” (Source C). This statement is further illustrated in the chart in Source D. This visual representation validates how production is more of an impact when considering the “total greenhouse gas emissions” to “household food consumption” (Source D). By taking the oath to become a locavore, people are also taking a pledge to unknowingly increase the CO2 emissions in the atmosphere by eating…

    • 728 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Aside from cost figures, relative CO2 emissions, and economist concerns, fresh well grown food seems to invigorate people and make them fell good. A common mistake in modern analyses is to ignore emotional, basic human response. For example, the institution of Communism is a theoretically utopian idea for poorer countries, but when humans are the test subjects, the intended structure falls prey to uneven distribution of power and a deprived people. Similarly, even if it was more cost effective and economically efficient to outsource food production, the cozy knowledge of where the food on your plate originated and who produced it is left to cold mystery. The afore-mentioned documentary, Food Inc, exposes many of the lies behind the appealing labels on our food products (seriously a crazy movie!). In addition to taste and piece of mind, Maiser’s web document suggests how locality promotes preserving open spaces, which are rapidly disappearing in the cities of the U.K. and America. Urbanization is a rampant force that extinguishes humanity’s valuable connections with nature. Nature calms us; everyone who has hiked or camped can vouch with uncountable reasons why this is…

    • 677 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Barbara Kingsolver's Life

    • 963 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In chapter one of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, Barbara Kingsolver decides to move her family from Tucson, Arizona to Virginia to live their lives as Locavores (People who only eat what they grow, whether it be meat or something that grows from the earth. They also eat locally grown foods). Kingsolver wants us, as her readers, to start thinking about where the food we are eating is actually coming from. When it comes down to it, most people just don't know what they are putting in their bodies. Though Kingsolver and her husband make some great points in this chapter, one thing that isn't particularly appealing about Animal, Vegetable, Miracle…

    • 963 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    We can often eat locally by buying from farmers markets, supporting small farms, and shopping at the local food co-op. Sometimes, however, the food in these places might come from too far away to be considered local. For the purposes of this essay, food will be considered local if it comes from within a one-hundred mile radius. Is eating and supporting locally grown food beneficial? Michael Pollan’s “Behind the Organic-Industrial Complex,” Rachel Carson’s “The Human Cost,” and Peter Huber’s “How Cities Green the Planet” each provide insight into the way locally sourced food is influencing the health of people and the planet. Locally sourced food is picked ripe, thereby having a better flavor and more nutrients; the carbon footprint may be lower because it is not transported so far; and buying local food stimulates your local economy. All this is well and good, but there is not enough locally sourced food available to feed everyone in a particular region, and locally sourced food may not be grown or transported as efficiently as food grown…

    • 720 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pollan hosts a dinner party and only serves food that he had hunted or gathered himself. His guests loved the dinner, and Pollan thinks that this is because the food was local. In his book, Pollan says that the connection to the food was why it tasted so good. “In the end, I did feel it was a perfect meal. It wasn’t my cooking that made it perfect, but the connection we felt with the food, with the place we live and with each other” (317). The author knows that the food was grown locally, without pesticides and unnatural processes that subdue the flavor. Pollan finally got to taste real food. Authentic, straight out of the garden, pure and delicious food.…

    • 598 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The locavore movement has been receiving a lot of popularity due to its healthy eating and healthy lifestyle benefits, but these benefits are still causing a lot of major issues to the consumer. For example, Jennifer Maiser a blogger explains all of the benefits that the locavore movement provides, such as “...eating local is better for air quality and pollution than eating organic…” (Source A). All of these benefits which are mentioned have proven to have difficult challenges. James McWilliams an author for a business magazine explains how “a 2006 study...discovered that it made more environmental sense for a Londoner to buy lamb shipped from New Zealand than to buy lamb raised in the UK.” (Source C). This explains how it is more beneficial to purchase food or in this example lamb from New Zealand which would have more transportation, than purchasing food from London which requires less transportation. This is due to the fact that the lamb in New Zealand is “raised on pastures with a small carbon footprint” which proves to be more healthier and beneficial to the consumer even though it requires more transportation. This idea that nutritious food is only…

    • 1282 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Final Essay Number 2

    • 1587 Words
    • 5 Pages

    being food, and just enjoy it. They enjoy it no matter how its made, therefore if it taste good in…

    • 1587 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    It offers fresher fruits and vegetables when purchased from local farmers with less nutrients lost due to extended shipping times. Another benefit is when purchasing produce from local farmers the money stays within the community, boosting local economy. Additionally, by supporting small farms it allows them to grow and receive further support from the government. In contrast, studies have shown buying local is not always beneficial for the environment, based on environmental costs across the life cycle of the produce. Lastly, since the majority of Americans live hundreds or thousands of miles from major centers of food production it is impossible for most of the world to feed itself a diverse and healthy diet using only local food production. Even though something sounds logical, do some research to ensure the information presented is true and/or…

    • 1246 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Essay On Locavorism

    • 516 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Some may think that becoming a locavore will reduce the transportation of foods, resulting in saving gasoline and the air. According to James McWilliams, while everyone focuses on transportation, “they overlook other energy-hogging factors in food production.” Depending on where the produce is coming from can become a decision changer. If animals are being raised on pastures, it won’t harm the environment, although this may not be local. Contrary to this, if produce is being “produced under intensive factory like conditions” in a local area, there is no beneficial reason to buy from local places (Source C). Considering one of the main objectives of the locavore movement is to improve the environment, people should focus more on how the food is being produced as an attempt to decrease the carbon dioxide being produced. Statistically, gas emissions from the production of foods are greater than wholesale, retail and transportation all together (Source…

    • 516 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays