Green: Hard to Swallow?

When it comes to energy demands, we're our own worst enemy. One of the "invisible" ways we consume fuels (adding to cost, supply depletion and pollution) is how far our food must be shipped before it gets to us. Grapes from Chile. Oranges from the middle east. Even grain from the Midwest or seafood from the gulf. What we eat has to trucked a long way to get to our tables. We're told by green evangelists to buy local produce instead. But can we?

This phenomenon of long-distance food is really only a hundred and fifty years old, though. Back in the mid 1800s, people mostly ate local -- because they had no choice. New England farmers battled the rocky ground to grow grains. These grains were ground in local mills and baked in local bakeries. Local farms raised cattle and produced milk. These very perishable foodstuffs couldn't travel far without spoiling.

Before refrigeration, people laid up a winter's worth of food. They salted meat butchered in the autumn. They stored away the autumn grain harvest carefully so it could be turned into bread through the dark cold months. If you were doing well, the winter diet of salted meat, bread and some rootstocks would be getting boring by the time spring came. If you were less well off, you were running out of food before the spring grass gave cattle something to eat again (resuming milk production) People got through the winter on a pretty short menu.

Things changed in the mid-1800s when railroads opened up Midwest farms to a larger market. It became cheaper to buy grain from Ohio than to grow it in New Hampshire. Local New Hampshire farmers turned to perishable foods which couldn't come from Ohio (yet). One was dairy (hence the famous Hood dairies of Derry) and apples, (hence the many orchards of Londonderry, etc.)

This trend has gone global. Food comes from all over now. But what if you tried to a good green do-bee? What could you eat that was grown locally? New Hampshire produces about $53 million in dairy, $21 million in livestock, $12 million in veggies and $8 million in apples. Compare this roughly $100 million in food with the $380 million NH grows in "ornamental horticulture". Could New Hampshire live off what we grow? It isn't sounding too likely.

But here's the question for you. Would YOU be willing to lay up a larder of cheeses, some salt beef, a few dried veggies and dried apples, (and bushels of dried flowers) to live on all winter? I don't see many hands being raised. How can we "buy locally" if we're not willing to (a) eat what's grown locally or (b) grow locally what we want to eat?

It's easy to preach green. It's a lot harder to put your mouth where you dogma is.