I’ll keep this simple — by the time an organic apple comes from California to DC, it isn’t organic anymore. It’s an apple-flavored ball of diesel fuel.
There are radical responses — the hundred mile diet, for one — but shopping at farmers’ markets and abstaining from out-of-season fruit is a better use of petroleum and better for local agriculture.
And sadly, those apples are not even from California out of season. They are from New Zealand or Chile. Even in Cali we don’t get local tree fruit out of season. All the pear orchards I drive by on my way to work only harvest once a year. As a kid we could pick an avocado from the yard year round. But strawberries were in March. And apples only came in October.
California’s a garden of eden
A paradise to live in or see
But believe it or not
You won’t find it so hot
If you aint got the do re mi.
That’s why I like to get my apples in apple pie. From the freezer section.
Like PB, I avail myself often of the freezer section. However, as I have just returned from spending some time with my brother and his wife where the meat comes from (literally) across the driveway and the veggies from behind the porch, I do see the value of local purchasing-practices…
I bought some shrimp from VIETNAM today. At Whole Foods. I was so shocked I bought them. I mean…. I love on the OCEAN. We can’t find farm-raised shrimp closer than VIETNAM??
Sorry. I live on the ocean. Or rather, by it. I do not love on the ocean. Unless the boat is *very* sturdy.
PeaceBang, who quit caffeine yesterday and is feeling it
Though I’ve not given up hope on vegetarian diet, I am trying to eat a little lower on the food chain. Food without a face, to evoke a Shavianism, even though everyone knows that’s the best part. Shellfish for instance. There’s good Atlantic American and Canadian shellfish close to Vicki, some others and me. Better than eco destructive farmed seafood.
Says the man who just bought eco laundry soap from Belgium.