Food Miles

I am challenged about the concept of food miles. If the term is new to you, it is literally the distance travelled by your food from where it was grown to your plate.

Where practicable I do like to buy local organic food that is in season. I also minimize the amount of packaged or fake food I buy - you will never see Twisties in my pantry for example :-)

The reliance on the importation of fruit and vegetables is possibly more of an issue for Europe and the US than Australia but we still import phenomenal amounts of the same. That decision is easy for me - I was brought up as a "buy Australian" kid (who says advertising doesn't work) - so I virtually never even consider buying overseas fresh food.

Chocolate is another easy one - I am not aware of a fair trade Australian chocolate producer - and certainly I have never seen one in the supermarkets or gourmet stores I frequent, so I am more than happy to purchase fair trade chocolate, even if the company is from overseas and the product has considerable food miles attached to it.

I get stuck on other things though. Take coffee for example - we have a perfectly acceptable coffee producer who grows their own beans just up the proverbial road (a couple of hours away). Now do I purchase their coffee - minimizing food miles and supporting local businesses, or do I buy fair trade coffee and support a community elsewhere in the world, but clock up enormous food miles. Even if I assume that the quality and the taste of the coffee is equal, I get stuck on which one is the more 'moral' decision.

Shall keep you up to date with my musings :-)