

Is Locavorism for Rich People Only? - tokenadult
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/is-locavorism-for-rich-people-only/

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tptacek
Of course it is. That's the point of locavorism: to create a market for
locally-sourced food. As more people buy from farmers, CSAs, and farmers
markets, those suppliers will scale, and prices will come down.

The "boundaries" promoted by locavorism aren't arbitrary. Local food is
seasonal, has a lower environmental impact, and tends to come from smaller
farms. It's part of a farm-to-table ethic that makes food traceable and
creates a relationship between suppliers and consumers that isn't arbitrated
by huge multinational corporations. It also tastes better.

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philk
I'm unsure of the advantages you describe in your second paragraph:

1) Seasonal isn't an advantage; I'd much rather be able to enjoy broccoli (or
whatever) all year round rather than have to make do with it for a quarter of
the year.

2) Local food doesn't have a lower environmental impact. The argument made is
that food isn't being transported as far, hence their is less fuel burned in
delivering it. However, the energy cost of moving food around - in trucks and
on container ships, is remarkably low compared with the other costs in growing
food. Much more energy is expended getting the food home to the consumer than
getting it to the store, regardless of where it came from. As people often
travel further to get to farmers markets than supermarkets (not to mention
getting food home delivered) this causes local food to have a bigger
environmental footprint.

3) I dont' have a problem with any of the other things in my life being
"arbitrated by huge multinational corporations", so I'm unsure why I should
care when it comes to food. As long as the "huge multinational corporations"
aren't large enough to form a monopoly (or oligopoly) I'm not disadvantaged.

4) I don't want a relationship with my food supplier beyond them giving me
food and me giving them money as I don't really have time for this - and if I
had the free time I'd rather spend it on something else.

5) Traceability is a good thing, however large companies are making progress
in achieving this through RFID. Systems which make use of this have been in
place for a while on some products, for example meat in Japan.

6) I've had food from farmers markets and from organic suppliers. In both
cases I heard people promote the food as 'tasting better', however I found it
tasted the same in the former case and worse in the latter. I suspect that
this is more a psychological effect, if you're ponying up twice the cash for
bananas you might experience them as tasting better. Taste is, after all,
subjsective.

7) Finally, your post seems to be predicated upon the idea that corporations
are evil (TM) while small farmers are honest salt-of-the-earth types. Neither
is true.

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vlod
Coming from the other side of the pond (I'm a Brit) and growing up where my
folks grew their own vegetables, I've really been turned off by a lot of the
stuff churned out by corporations and labelled 'food'.

In regard to taste, it's simply not true that all year round food tastes the
same as something that is in season.

Im not talking about organics here. Heck I grew my own tomatoes in my back
yard and they were 95% better than the stuff in supermarkets.

Buy some strawberries from a major supermarket, cut them open. They are not
not supposed to be white inside. That's because of the manufacturing warehouse
process. They are supposed to be super sweet. Usually they are not.

Buy some tomatoes. Same deal. Cut it open and examine the cell structure..
Half the time it either whitish and tasteless or the cell structure looks
collapsed and will rot real-soon-now. Buy some on-the-vine fancy tomatoes
(from your local farmers market).. notice how sweet they taste and how red
they look once you slice them.. thats because they've been allowed to ripe
naturally.

The other thing I find scary is that if I buy apples from the supermarket it
takes forever for them to rot. That simply is not right.

Personally I prefer to eat stuff that's in season, so my menu changes as the
year progresses.

I try real hard not to buy stuff from major supermarkets. I find it's usually
cheaper to buy stuff from your local farmers market (go late in the day when
they are trying to get rid of everything) or local grocer store which gets
supplied from farmers.

Oh I'm not some fancy shmancy foodie hippie. I just want decent food for a
reasonable price.

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timcederman
You should watch the episode of Bullshit! where they get people who claim such
differences to try and differentiate between local/organic and 'regular' fruit
and vegetables.

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tptacek
Yeah, that's nice. On the other hand, Cooks Illustrated compared off-season
supermarket tomatoes to canned tomatoes and concluded that you shouldn't even
bother buying "fresh" tomatoes. Who do I trust more, Cooks Illustrated or Penn
and Teller?

The issue here isn't about whether your food has some meaningless "organic"
label on it. That's a straw man argument. "Locavorism" isn't about going to
the market and buying the shit they mark up an extra 50%. It's about not
buying low quality mass market out-of-season industrial food.

~~~
vlod
Yep.. nothing wrong with canned tomatoes. They are usually picked when they
are ripe. I use them and they're great.

However I'm partial to fresh food as well, salad/sandwichs/salsa.

