The Pros and Cons of Locavores in Community Wide Dietary Management

One could argue that community wide conformity with their dietary choices and market selection is almost a case of neighbor association gone overboard; however, the peculiarity of a societal dietary cult will be left to someone else’s imagination for the sake of importance. Locavores, the proponents of eating locally grown produce, are posed with numerous items to consider when weighing the risks and returns of adapting the locavore lifestyle. Items such as environmental impact, nutritional value, locational advantages and disadvantages, and so on… Many debatable points exist in the process adapting locavore mannerisms; furthermore, they extend beyond the ridiculousness of coordinating grocery runs with the neighbor lady two blocks up the road.

Eating from local farmer’s produce is proposed to be an easy way for the whole community to help make a lasting impact on the global environment.

There is evidence from observational studies that have found major pollution to the environment comes from the production stage of mass producing food in the United States.

Up to 2 metric tons of carbon dioxide is thought to enter the atmosphere as a result of reliance on these factory sized farming operations, which the locavore movement can combat by moving the need for such food to local grown eco-friendly farms. The agricultural business can in fact damage the environment when one monopolized company produces a type of food for an entire country, sure, yet there is still a reason that our country collectively relies on such manufacturers. The US is a large country as many people know, ranging from the bitter climates of Michigan to the beautiful farming utopias like California.

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Naturally, those who live in fortunate regions like the west coast states near California have the option to take advantage of local farms.

That’s all peaches and cream if you notice that you can grow anything in that gorgeous agricultural state with sunshine year round and a farming season that lasts a majority of the year. Some states like those in the northwest lack the access to certain goods within an arbitrary 100 mile radius, and would only see, for example, peaches or lettuce twice a year when the growing seasons came around on their brief cycles. It may have stood out that the 100 mile radius was labeled “arbitrary.” This was to refer back to an earlier argument over the production stage and it’s polluting outcome. In the graph shown, the three stages of food consumption and production were labeled based on their carbon dioxide output. Oddly enough, the issue locavores tend to claim is solved through local diets is the cut back of pollution brought on by transport, which only takes up a slim slice of the climate impact compared to production. Regardless, environmental impacts are but one of the topics locavores must address. Along with environmental impacts, the locavore movement aims to tackle nutritional value from local grown foods. There is an argument that since the food is fresher it has a greater taste and nutritional value; however, there was a statement made by a professor on the subject of nutrition and food studies that directly challenged the idea that store bought foods lead to a poorly nourished lifestyle. If you pick your meals carefully, she explained, there’s simply no loss of nutrition when buying from the store.

In fact, the only claim this woman made in support of locavore lifestyle is that the freshness does positively impact the taste of the food. Whether or not this edges you into eating locally or not is none of the matter’s concern, as this is simply another point with opinionated backgrounds. Whether it’s the nutritional value you gain from eating locally, the miniscule impact your purchase has on the worldwide sales of these industrial plants, or the simple truck haul you’re hoping to avoid, there are many things to consider before getting behind the “eco-friendly” bandwagon.