green feast

Would you like it in a box? Would you like it with a fox? Would you like it here or there? You can eat it ANYWHERE! Green eatin' isn't just for Sam-I-Am anymore: green popular culture has invaded our grocery stores, our refrigerators, our dining room tables and our stomachs!

There are some pretty basic well known trends in green food consumption - organic, local, and of course, the big scary V ... and by that I mean vegetarianism (coming soon). But there are some critical questions to consider when it comes to these green eats. (should we call them "gr-eats?") Is it better to buy organic fruit that has been shipped all the way from Chile, or to buy locally grown food that isn't organic? And if course, when it comes to meat and meat products, is it really best to go cold turkey (pun intended) and ditch everything that ever had eyes? (For starters, I'll talk about the organic v. local dilemma here- you'll have to wait for the main course for the meat in another post coming soon.)

Dilemma # 1: Organic? Local? Or some combination of the two?

Before I go any further with this, I want to make sure that you do not get me wrong - whether organic and local, eco-friendly food is better than not. But so far, it seems to me that the in the competition for the spotlight in popular food culture, organic food has been winning out. John Cloud notes in a recent TIME article that "nearly a quarter of American shoppers now buy organic."

There are a few reasons for this 1) organic food is right there screaming "buy me" in your regular big-chain supermarket. You don't have to go anywhere special to get it, and even though its a little more expensive, it's no big ordeal finding it. 2) It's easier to see the connection between organic food, the environment, and of course, a more immediate concern for most people: human health. No chemicals and pesticides running off into the drinking water, no steroids, if you can scrounge up a few extra dollars it seems like the way to go. But nowhere on that organic sticker does it say just how many miles traveled, or how many greenhouse gas emissions it took to get that organic produce to you.

Eating local on the other hand seems like it would involve a lot of extra effort; you're not too likely to happen upon a full-fledged farmer's market in aisle 4 of your average supermarket. And even though buying from your friend farmer Ted can be easily associated with supporting local business, it's less commonly associated with protecting the earth or your own health. Little do you know that you can often find locally grown foods in the supermarket, go figure. And as Cloud writes, though studies have shown that organic food is more nutritionally valuable, the bodily harm of pesticide use is debated.

This debate could go on forever, so I'm just going to get to the, well not to the meat, to the vegetables of it. In my eyes, and Cloud's apparently, if you have to choose between the two, eating local is the way to go (if you can find local AND organic then that's just a green diner's dream). Far traveling food shipments - even organic ones - emit greenhouse gases, and to me, it's just not worth the trade-off. I'd also rather support my farming friends - as Cloud puts it "I help keep Ted in business, and he helps keep me fed--and the elegance and sustainability of that exchange make more sense to me than gambling on faceless producers who stamp organic on a package thousands of miles from my home." Talk about community based living (see my previous post about smart growth).

For 10 reasons to eat local, click here.

Hungry for more? Check out my friend's blog, The Knead to Feed (she inspired me to do this post) to learn more about how you and your dinner can go green together ...