What's environmentally better? Driving 7 miles to the farmer's market or walking 1 mile to...

Organically grown doesn't necessarily mean lower carbon footprint. Why not ride a bike to the farmers' market and support locally grown stuff?

 

It's better to vote with your wallet for the local market. Yeah, the 7 miles might leave more carbon up front, but the long term effect would be lower overall with consistent locally grown market support.

 

If your local supplier 7 miles away went out of business because of lack of support and a developer swooped in, bought up his place and built 600 new homes and high concentration housing where there used to be farmland growing organic produce, how would the carbon footprint of your local area fare?

 

Yeah, what he said. :nod:

 

600 families have to live somewhere.

 

doesnt matter how you get there because you as an individual will very little to impact your carbon footprint unless you walk nearly all the time. you would be much better off to combine your 7 mile organic fruit stand trip with other required errands.

but not supporting a business model you believe in will cause that business to go away. major grocery store chains will probably survive simply because there are enough low income people around to keep them going plus they tend to be located to where the average commuting distance is less than a few miles anyway.

where i live, i have several national chains which seem to be on every corner. there are also acouple medium to large local chains including one that covers only a handful of stores in a few counties but they do offer local produce and other locally produced items (jams, jellies, etc)

i do go there a lot (mostly because the Storman's chain also have EV plug in stations) and the locally produced stuff is significantly more expensive, but some of it is very very good (some is not)

we also have local co-ops but we only have basicly 4 outlets, they all have very limited hours (eastside co-op is open until 7 pm in summer time but others close very early or are only open a few days a week) and they do provide options that regular stores cant match but sometimes major store chains are the only option

 

trader joes is an excellent option if you dont have a local one but they are not a whole lot different than Safeway imm.

they still ship most of their stuff an extremely long way (they have to to provide a good year round variety) which is another point to make. we are spoiled to the point that we do eat fresh fruit grown thousands of miles away...

lets face it, to justify eating a single grapefruit in my neighborhood, i would have to walk to the store and back probably about 20 times

 

wuss.

 

How big is the company you work for? Where I work, 2 dozen of us employees joined an organic CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) co-op. (Full Circle Farms) They deliver a box of produce for each of us to our work site every week. The number of subscribers makes this delivery worthwhile for them.

I have a rolling cooler that I bring to work and back home via public transportation. (Bremerton to Seattle, bus and ferry) This keeps the carbon footprint low for everyone involved in the transaction and supports locally grown produce. If public transportation is not an option, you are still combining a trip you would already make to get to work.

(By the way Tripp, I bicycle to work the rest of the week instead of doing the bus leg. )

 

wow awesome effort!@!

 

I vote for the farmers market. If you local supermarket is anything like mine that organic avocado was air-shipped from Chile.

My goal is to buy produce from as close to my house as possible. This starts with my garden. We have a farmer's market from May to September and this is a good way to get locally grown produce in season. During the winter, I draw down my preserved local food and supplement with produce from the local supermarket..

 

That's the catch with a lot of organic stuff. Local organic is obviously an excellent choice, but organic from South America vs Local Traditional produce is often a more difficult decision. Better to support local and push for better ag practices at home.

 

well i battle that decision daily...now that i am getting old, my "eat whatever i want but stay active" philosophy simply no longer is supposed to work...at least that is what doctor says. my triglycerides are like 200% above recommended levels...now they tell me it could be diet or it could be parental influences... we shall see.

but anyway, the point is, fresh F&V's are the thing. so to get a variety and whatnot and living this far north, locally grown is not an option for 6-7 months of the year.

when the Farmer's Market is open i hit it up a lot, plus to encourage the option, i only buy produce at major stores only if its designated a locally grown within 100 miles (have to go that far because the MAJOR fruit producing area is about 80 miles away) now the stores charge a Premium, but hopefully by supporting this option, i will encourage them to do it more often and hopefully drive the price down which will encourage others to blah blah...

either way, at this time of year, i am looking at roughly (some stuff we buy lasts more than a week, others only a few days) $30-40 a week and that covers 2 people with the other eating probably half what i eat

 

triglycerides are the key. Watch them puppies or they'll kill ye dead, mate. If you're a soda fiend, like I used to be, cutting down/eliminating altogether, will hammer your triglycerides. Also steer clear of highly refined carbs (white bread, polished rice, white flour products, etc) and your numbers should fall. You want your HDC:Triglyceride ratio to be less than 1.7. This is a good proxy for insulin levels. You want your insulin levels to be low as insulin in large quantities is not good for you for a variety of reasons.

One thing that I do like is that more and more local grocery chains were talking up the "we buy locally grown produce", which encouraging.

 

The numbers I've seen are pretty staggering. Estimates for the average distance traveled for an item on your local grocery store shelf (organic or not) is 1700-2200 miles depending on who's figuring. I'd say that carbon footprint could easily outweigh the 14 mile drive in a Prius, plus all the other benefits already mentioned of supporting local (preferably organic or at least natural) agriculture.

Nice to be on he same side of an argument with you JSH

We do shop at Trader Joe's a fair deal. Maybe not the best carbon wise, but they do pretty well on a lot of other issues.

Rob

 

How about making a garden in your yard? Perhaps some fruit trees, as well. Is that a possibility? Maybe there's a place nearby where you could start one...

I'd be lost without my patch of dirt.