food miles

The benefits of eating local cannot be understated: fresher and more flavorful products, economic support for local small-scale farmers and producers, less harmful environmental impacts and better appreciation for the delicious bounty to be found closer to home. But for many food lovers, embracing this philosophy comes with a trade-off.

The only reasons why I do anything are because it is fun now, it allows things to be fun later, or it ensures that things will continue being fun. Eating? Fun now. Working? Fun later when I eat what I bought with my paycheck. Shoveling the walk? Ensures that when I haul my groceries into the house, I don’t slip, fall, and ruin the fun of eating them.

So, obviously, the main reason why I’d buy local food is because it’s fun in so many ways:

It’s been a weird growing season in the Twin Cities this year. We had a hot spell in spring, then crazy rain, then a dry but cool summer. Not so much fun for my flowers, but good material for grousing with fellow gardeners. It puts me in mind of that old saw, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

Nobody says that very often anymore, perhaps because it’s no longer true. Most of us do, in fact, contribute to the root causes of unstable weather, the climate change it heralds, and the general planetary degradation that marks our age.

Alex Christensen is a regular contributor to Simple, Good, and Tasty.