Hello all.
I have been thinking about the topic of local food a lot lately. Obviously, it is best to purchase and consume as much food grown in the area you live. Some reasons for this include: being in touch with how your food is produced, reducing carbon emissions, supporting your local economy, etc.
I live in Vancouver, British Columbia where the climate is mild but VERY, very rainy. It is not a very good climate for producing food. I'm sure everyone is familar with the book "100 mile diet" by Alisa Smith and JB Mackinnon... They are from Vancouver and I believe they were vegan (or maybe just veg) before beginning this project.
Anyway, while eating with 100 miles, they ate a great deal of potatoes, cheese, eggs (they also went to farms and found out how the animals were treated and purchased mainly from farms and farmers markets because they felt it important to see how their food was produced), what local vegtables there was available, fish and honey instead of sugar.
Now, I am a commited vegan, but sometimes I do wonder whether it is truely better for the environment, myself, my community, and maybe even animals, to be vegan, or to eat locally? An example of this is honey: (I know this is quite unvegan but I admit I care less about bees than about say, a cow) If you were to purchase honey that was produced 10 miles away from your home, it is surely better than to purchase sugar that was produced on the other side of the world by people living in inhuman conditions, etc,etc.
Obviously most people are quite removed from their food these days; they dont know how its produced, who grows it, etc. If there was no possibility of shipping food half way around the world (or even from california to here), it would be very difficult for me, in Vancouver, to be vegan. I wonder if that says something about whether or not its ethical to be vegan and eat food from far away, considering our current environmental and social state.
Please share your thoughts. Thank you.
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