In today's world local cuisine is not better for the environment. It's worse. Transportation costs are extremely minimal but fertilizer and other growing costs are way higher. Using only local cuisine is actually worse for the environment than using food that grew in the best place possible for it.
This is false. Local food is generally more expensive because real estate and labor costs are way higher. Nutrients and electricity (the inputs with direct environmental impact) account for a tiny fraction of the cost of production.
Yields may be slightly lower, but farmers won't grow crops that aren't relatively optimized to the environment. No one's growing avocados in Missouri (except perhaps in a tropical greenhouse, which likely is designed to self-sufficiently sustain its environment).
