by Sherwin Lee

Eating local doesn’t just mean supporting local farmers, businesses, and communities.  It’s also one of the most environmentally conscious ways we can make our lives a little greener. But do we really know just how much more beneficial local food is to our planet?  A recent panelist discussion during Syracuse University’s Thursday Morning Roundtable drummed up the facts of the massive carbon footprint that is left when consumers have a meal of non-locally grown food.  

“Food miles,” as they’re called, combine the total number of miles that the average meal travels to get to the dinner table.  And there’s quite a few.  On average, a non-locally grown dinner will have come 1,500 miles from a number of places, leaving a vast carbon footprint that the consumer may not have even been aware of.  In addition to shipping the food out, the resources spent on growing, producing, and distributing non-local food only make the ever-growing footprint larger. 

Eating local can make you feel not only good about your own health, but about the planet’s health as well. Food that can come from the ground to the table in one short hop is not only deliciously fresh, but also free of those pesky “food miles.”  Next time you eat local, it’s one less meal you have to worry about being transported in a puff of yucky black exhaust smoke.

Sherwin Lee is an architecture and urban planning student at the University of Washington. He is interested in community & neighborhood development and strongly supports using markets in urban spaces.