Food Miles, the Silent Killer?

Alan Leizerman
Jul 22, 2017 · 5 min read
This is not me, and not likely to ever be me.

I’m not much of a runner. I’m not sure why I even lead with that statement because frankly, I can count on one foot how many times I’ve done it of my own accord. I hate pounding my feet and knees on pavement or clutzing my way through dirt paths in the woods on the constant lookout for objects trying to trip me up. I hate chaffing, running shoes, and gasping.

My favorite quote about this inane exercise has always been by Val Kilmer in the 80’s movie Real Genius-when asked by a bubbly blonde in jogging pants if he runs he simply answers, “only when chased.”

But I hear running is good for my heart health, my stamina, and my overall well being. This may be true. It is probably true. I know this. But still, I steadfastly refuse to do it.

So for those of you who share my deep disdain for running but would like an alternative exercise, I offer a simple solution:

Counter those miles you could rack up slogging and panting in forward motion by deducting the miles your food travels to get to your plate.

Huh?

Thats right, FOOD MILES ARE KILLING YOU. I know this to be true much more than I know that running can prolong my life. (It never feels like it will, by the way, in fact quite the opposite.)

Food Miles. What are they? Why are they a big deal? Sit for a minute and catch your breath while I explain.

Market Madness

Let’s start with a trip to the grocery for some food. You may or may not know much about grocery store marketing and advertising, but it plays a big part in how you choose the food you put in your cart. Ad agencies are tuned in to people wanting to eat and live a healthier lifestyle, so they are portraying all sorts of food, in fact almost ALL foods, to be healthy and full of the essentials to a consumer looking to live a wholesome lifestyle.

But do you believe it? For example, can a sugar-laden cereal with 30 unreadable ingredients claiming to be full of “whole grains and essential vitamins,” be the milk-filled holy grail of your healthy lifestyle? Probably not. In fact, definitive no. But their marketing is doing everything it can to tell you the opposite. It is screaming at you from the shelf to choose healthy.

Let’s leave processed food alone and head over to the produce aisle. Here’s where we can rack up the feel-good and guilt-free points, right? Raw health, right? Well, sort of.

Do you know where your food comes from? Do you know how to check? Would you know what to look for?

One factor we urge you to think about is the provenance, the point of origin, of your food. Are your aubergines from Amsterdam? Courgettes from Casablanca? Potatoes from Poland? Avocados from the Americas?

What does this mean, what’s the big deal?

Shipping, my friend.

The nutrition in your food comes from freshness. Anyone with a vegetable garden will tell you that if you pick a tomato, you’ve only got a few days to use it before mother nature starts to take it back. Of course produce companies know this, they live it. So how can they keep the vegetables fresh enough to last the journey to the shelves? Or more to the point, how can they create the illusion of freshness?

They’ve got plenty of tricks up their sleeves. They use gasses on your food to keep it from ripening en route, or conversely to quickly ripen it upon arrival. Is that harmful to humans? That’s still under investigation. But what it definitely is, is unnatural.

They refrigerate traveling foods to slow the natural ripening process. They can spray them with water containing chemicals like chlorine. Wax them. Anything they can do so that after 2 days, 5 days, ten days even, that your produce looks like it was just pulled from the ground.

Next, let’s talk emissions. Foods traveling by truck, ship, or airplane are producing air pollution, with airplanes taking the top spot for crimes against the atmosphere. Air pollution is tied to a number of human health issues but it is also being filtered back through nature’s giant breathing apparatus into the food we (and I mean all of us, animals included) grow to eat.

Suddenly even the word “fresh” seems like a marketing ploy. if you add to that a colorful and eye catching image of a peaceful farm on the packaging, you might not even think twice about throwing it in the cart. Advertising wins over the desire to eat better food.

Ok, but is that killing you?

Here’s the kicker, the real science. As time goes on, that traveling produce is also losing it’s nutritional value. The clock starts ticking the second it is yanked from the vine. “The Institute of Food Research reports that fresh vegetables traveling long distances lose up to 45 percent of their nutritional value between being picked and landing in a market.” (Environmental Nutrition, 2016)

Unfortunately in most cases that healthy, raw nutrition you are conned into purchasing either doesn’t exist anymore, or is greatly diminished. On top of that, you could be ingesting a whole truckload of unknowns and who-knows-whats in the forms of gas nanoparticles and dangerous chemicals. So much for healthy eating. More like deprivation.

So what can you do?

You can challenge yourself to get informed, and to buy as local as you can. Shopping directly from farmers, farm shops, farmers markets, or companies engaged in reliable and ethical sourcing gives you more of an opportunity to eat all foods at their peak freshness and nutrition while supporting local economies, keeping air pollution levels down, and creating a better world for everyone. Food businesses are also paying attention to the growing consumer demands for traceability and are making moves every day to retain consumer loyalty by providing more information on provenance.

So pay attention to where your food is coming from. Add up the miles. Set a goal for yourself to decrease the number of miles you are willing to purchase foods from. Seek foods that aren’t afraid to #namethefarm.

It beats the holy hell out of running, right?

Happerley invites you to join us in Living Happerley. This new food and lifestyle movement challenges you to only eat foods with an origin you can definitively identify. You’ll soon see that knowing the journey of your food will not only make you a more informed consumer, but you will eat healthier, eat sustainably, and enjoy the adventures your search for better foods will take you on.

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