Got Cheap Milk?

[thetrain]

I've often wondered how much 'better' it really is to eat locally and found this article interesting. click

It doesn't address the one thing I've often thought might be true - that a small farmer driving small loads to a farmer's market (and then driving home) several times a week creates a larger carbon footprint than one semi truck of non local food driven in once a week.

[Anna Blume]

Carbon footprints are not my principal concern when it comes to eating local food. More important to me is the widespread preservation of farm land and types of small farms, dairies being one of the most endangered since so many Americans want to pay as little as possible for their groceries, ending up, indeed, with food that is both cheap and inexpensive. (It's hard to charge a lot for milk.) On the selfish side of things, freshness and flavor matter even more. Having lived several lives as a cow, the most recent one culminating in a Midwestern feedlot, I kind of care about the quality of bovine lives, too, imagining they might be better at a few exemplary, small dairy farms (though the feminist in me isn't exactly keen on what you got to do to keep dairy cows lactating) than at others. Not all exemplary farms are local and I know some sell to larger businesses w name recognition who ship their stuff in semis.

As an aside, at a forum this morning, I learned one of the products Land O'Lakes sells is feed.

[johnb]

I've often wondered how much 'better' it really is to eat locally and found this article interesting. click

It doesn't address the one thing I've often thought might be true - that a small farmer driving small loads to a farmer's market (and then driving home) several times a week creates a larger carbon footprint than one semi truck of non local food driven in once a week.

These matters have been taken up in the past. click

[DonRocks]

I've often wondered how much 'better' it really is to eat locally and found this article interesting. click

It doesn't address the one thing I've often thought might be true - that a small farmer driving small loads to a farmer's market (and then driving home) several times a week creates a larger carbon footprint than one semi truck of non local food driven in once a week.

Well, *I've* often wondered if taking leftovers home in a styrofoam container in a plastic bag, sometimes with a plastic spoon, fork, and knife, is 'worse' than just letting the restaurant throw the food away (and my instinct says that, yes, it's worse), so if anyone has some fact-based insights into this, could you please post them here? I have a natural "don't waste food" instinct, but it sure seems like the waste generated from taking home the second half of an entree (or for that matter, getting anything as carryout) is pretty out of proportion to the food. Then again, I guess so is opening a can of sardines. Maybe we should all just climb trees and pick fruits, blowing darts through a tube at any squirrels running by below (making sure to take careful inventory of the darts so they can be gathered and reused (then again, the actual manufacture of the darts is problematic (also the tube, unless it's hollowed-out bamboo or something of that nature))).

[dcs]

Well, *I've* often wondered if taking leftovers home in a styrofoam container in a plastic bag, sometimes with a plastic spoon, fork, and knife, is 'worse' than just letting the restaurant throw the food away (and my instinct says that, yes, it's worse), so if anyone has some fact-based insights into this, could you please post them here? I have a natural "don't waste food" instinct, but it sure seems like the waste generated from taking home the second half of an entree (or for that matter, getting anything as carryout) is pretty out of proportion to the food.

I think it is hard to place a value on a half eaten entree, but the environmental costs of take-out containers (many of which cannot be recycled) are well documented, especially to our waterways. As for wasting food, check out the second link below for statistics regarding how much food is thrown out by full service restaurants.

click

clack

cluck

[johnb]

I think it is hard to place a value on a half eaten entree

I'm not sure what I'd do for breakfast the next morning without it.