"shipping" 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?

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Christmas is rapidly approaching, but there is still a day or so left to get a package in the mail to your friends and family (although you may have to second-day air it). If you've made a batch of cookies or fudge to send to a loved one and you haven't gotten it in the mail yet because you are uncertain how best to send it, then Nicole over at Baking Bites has some good tips for you.

She has put together a list of advice about how to ship, what foods work best shipped and some recommendations on how to pack your goodies so that they arrive at their location still tasting good and in one piece. So check out her info and get your treats into the mail! Your family and friends will thank you for it!

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On Thursday morning, residents of Cape Hatteras in North Carolina were in for a bit of a surprise, especially those who liked Doritos. A damaged tractor-trailer-size shipping container washed up on the beach, bringing with it thousands of bags of the Doritos -- Cool Ranch, Nacho Cheese and Spicy Nacho -- that it contained. Locals, from shopkeepers to fishermen, grabbed as many bags as they could carry from the water and from where they lay strewn on the sand. One person even filled up a pickup truck with them - all in the name of "helping with cleanup," of course. The chips were almost entirely undamaged, thanks to their airtight packaging.

The feeding frenzy only lasted through the morning, as the container was secured, still containing an undetermined number of bags of chips, by the late afternoon. The boat that lost the container has not been tracked down yet, although the missing shipment is sure to be noticed when the crew reaches its eventual destination.

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The "food miles" theory says that the further food has to travel to reach its destination - such as food imported to Europe from New Zealand - the worse it is for the environment because of the greater quantity of pollutants emitted during transport. Researchers in New Zealand, where farmers and ranchers had a good deal of revenue at stake due to their remote location, put the theory to the test and came up with some interesting results.

Their overall conclusion was that the number of miles a food had traveled was not a reliable indicator of its environmental impact. Many forms of produce, as well as dairy and sheep meat, were found to be more energy efficient even when travel to Europe was taken into account. A similar study in the UK produced the same results.

This does not mean that buying goods from far away is necessarily "better" than buying local goods. It simply means that the method of production is what counts, not overall distance traveled, if environmental factors are a primary consideration when purchasing food. Locally produced food may be better in some cases, but it might not be if it is not responsibly produced in the first place. Buying local is a great way of supporting the local economy and keeping revenue within the community and for consumers who make that a priority, local still might be a better choice.

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All you Ween fans should get a kick out of this one. A supermarket employee in Munich recently stumbled upon 44 pounds of cocaine while unpacking cases of bananas shipped to Germany from Colombia, according to Reuters. Local police then searched through another 4,600 cases of produce, but failed to turn up any more contraband. Apparently the case in question had cocaine packed under a single top layer of bananas.

[Via FreshPlaza]