Get the Carbon Off Your Plate

Today, October 15th, is Blog Action Day.  Bloggers around the world will post about the same topic – Climate Change – on the same day. Visit  www.blogactionday.org

Here in Central PA, we have a brilliant way to fight climate change.  We have easy access to great local food.  We have organic options.  We have farms that produce meat, milk and cheeses using sustainable practices.  Our food decisions have impact on the environment in multiple ways.

What does food have to do with climate change?  On average, produce has traveled 1,500 miles between where it was grown to where it is consumed.  Reducing the food miles in your diet is one good way to reduce your carbon footprint and create significant energy savings.

The National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service states that about 80% of the energy consumed in our food system goes into transporting, packaging and processing food.   The inefficiencies of this treatment and transporting of our food has been documented. A 2002 study from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimated that our current system of food production needs 3 calories of energy to create 1 calorie of food.

When you make local food a priority, you reduce the food miles and often, eliminate food processing, elaborate packaging and energy used for storage.  Many of our local farmers use sustainable practices which eliminates the use of petroleum derived fertilizers and pesticides.

Reducing the amount of meat in your diet has the biggest impact in cutting food miles. Consider the transportation of grain fed to the animals to the farm.  Add to that the greenhouse gasses produced by manure.  It is arguable that the best way to cut carbon from your diet is to cut meat. You could join others in participating in meatless Monday or increase your vegetable and fruit consumption daily.

A gift of our region is our proximity to farming.  Short of growing your own food, the best way to increase your use of local food is to go to your farmers market routinely.  At the farmers market, search out local producers.  You may have to ask if the produce is grown locally.  Common sense might help you.  If there are grapefruits for sale in PA, they aren’t locally produced.  Out of season produce is also not produced locally.  There are a few farms that push the season with cold frames or hot houses.

Peas from Dickinson College Farm organically raised.

We have the Farmers on the Square producers only farm market in Carlisle.  Everything there is locally produced.

Go straight to the farm by joining a CSA.  Farms who are CSA’s offer a share of their harvest for a certain price.  You buy a share at the beginning of the season and pick up your produce weekly often into November. Many great farms that offer shares come immediately to mind.  There is Goldfinch Farm CSA in York County.  There is Spiral Path in Perry County.   CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.

Some farms deliver.  One that I know personally is Apple Valley Creamery.  They deliver fresh milk in bottles, cheeses, eggs and even meat.  Imagine, fresh milk in bottles.  Yum.  Another option is picking your own.  Paulus Orchards near Dillsburg has seasonal pick your own throughout the growing season as well as a market where you can buy a variety of their foods including jellies, sauces, and canned goods.

A super easy way to find great local food sustainably raised in PA is to go to Buy Fresh Buy Local on line.  All you need to do is enter your zip code and you’ll find multiple local food options; sometimes including restaurants that use only local foods.  I will feature local farms here as well.  Soon, I’ll talk to our farmers about our options for local food in the winter.

Reducing your food miles to combat climate change is one of many reasons to buy local food.   Add to that great flavor, health benefits, freshness, and a fun shopping experience, it’s a no brainer.