"imported food" news and stories

Interesting article in the New York Times this morning, about a subject we've all been hearing about a lot: the environmental effects of global food shipping. Not only are we eating food imported from far away places when it's unavailable or not in season here, but we're actually shipping lemons from Argentina to the citrus-rich south of Spain, sending Norwegian cod to China to be made into fillets and shipped back to Norway again. And we're starting to pay the cost in terms of global warming from the carbon emissions from all that shipping.

So maybe it's time to pay the financial cost as well, some economists say, in the form of taxes and carbon offsets for shippers and shoppers alike. While neither airplanes or ocean freighters are currently taxed for fuel used for international travel and transport of good, many people think it's time to end these tax breaks.

Well, that doesn't sound like a bad plan to me, but the question of imported foods and carbon emissions still present a conundrum for those of us who really love to eat (I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in any 100-mile diet that doesn't involve chocolate or coffee) and care about the environment. How do you green foodies out there deal with this issue?

Source

Despite the title of Is Whole Foods Wholesome?, the Slate article is not about Whole Foods as much as it is about the organic movement. Essentially, the article treats the increased demand for organic goods as an overly cynical teenager would treat their once favorite band after it "sells out." The band, having joined up with a major record label and making more money, reaching a wider audience and popularizing their brand of music, is no longer appealing to the teen who feels that if it isn't small and under-recognized, it isn't worth his or her recognition.

Organic foods have had a following for a long time, though their potential value was largely unappreciated by the mainstream population of grocery shoppers. As Whole Foods picked up and popularized the organic foods market, neatly filling a growing consumer demand with smart store layouts and good timing, they had to look further to find the organic foods to fit the demand. The question that posed by the Slate is whether it is appropriate to purchase these goods when they are not grown locally. In California, this is not a problem because most of the organic produce in the country comes from the state, but New York has a more limited production of those types of goods.

Source