I have a friend who says, "Never eat anything that doesn't have a name." By a name, he doesn't mean Fritos™ corn chips, or a Quarter Pounder™ with cheese, or any of the corporate names and trademarks with which we have become so familiar. Rather, he means names like "Rosie," or "Quinn's chickens", or "the big cabbage in Alpha garden." Admittedly, this directive may seem counter-intuitive, startling, perhaps. And yet, on closer inspection, I would argue that it is reasonable advice. It asks us to rethink our relationship to what we consume. It is an argument, among other things, for local food and for knowing a good deal more about what we ultimately choose to eat.

The arguments for local food range from the material to the spiritual, from the pragmatic to the ethical. To understand something of their importance requires knowing something about the existing food system. Currently, we (farmers and eaters alike) have all come to depend on a long-distance food supply over which we have little control &emdash; grapes from Chile, broccoli from Mexico, frozen pepperoni pizza from who knows where. Our food system has gone global. On average, our food travels over 1300 miles from field to table and it does so at great energy cost. Not only does the system use 10-15 calories of energy to deliver one calorie of food, but processing, packaging, transportation and marketing account for 75-85% of the energy consumed. Additionally, the system is propelled along by internal combustion engines and heavy infusions of non-renewable, fossil fuels. That such an energy sink can not be sustained over the long term is only underscored by the multiple, life-threatening impacts of CO2 emissions, oil spills, and international war.

And what do we get, food-wise, for this heavy investment? Today, less than 20 food crops constitute 90% of our diet. They have become raw materials &emdash; standard component parts &emdash; in the manufacture of endless food products. Plants and animals, furthermore, are managed &emdash; reconfigured &emdash; to suit the demands of industrial harvesting, processing, transportation and shelf-life. These typically take precedence over matters of taste, nutrition, ecological integrity, farmer and farm worker welfare. Genetics, like industrial processes and end products are increasingly owned and controlled by a finite number of transnational corporations, such as Archer Daniels Midland ("supermarket to the world"), Monsanto or ConAgra who can (and do) 'source' the cheapest labor and mine the cheapest resources anywhere on earth. As corporate profits increase, so does hunger, pesticide use, crop damage, and environmental degradation.

Local food because it is grown close to where it is eaten is a radical departure from the prevailing system. It reverses the distance, the vast physical and social separation that exists between the farmer and the eater. From an energy standpoint, local food requires little in the way of cross-country travel; it needs minimal packaging to escort it to market and virtually no mass-advertising. Not only can the proximity of a food supply minimize 'hidden' energy costs, but keeping production and consumption within a region encourages the recycling of production resources, whether soil nutrients or local dollars. Likewise, the wisdom and labor expended in the growing of good food can be directly realized and rewarded by area residents.

From a health standpoint, local food can be whole food, truly farm or garden fresh, and minimally processed. In such a state, looking much like it did in the field, it has more taste and greater nutritional value. Local food is also more likely to be free of chemicals. These, when used at all, are used sparingly, as measures of last resort. Growers can attend more closely to the food needs of the surrounding population (to which they, their neighbors, relatives and friends belong), than to the cosmetic standards of faceless commodity markets. Local eaters (and this includes area supermarkets, restaurants, hospitals and schools) can reinforce such behavior with an expanded tolerance for the superficial blemishes, and the color, shape and size variations that naturally occur in any biological system, but are treated as 'waste' and 'inefficiency' in an industrial one.

Local food is also able to respect natural limits; it is suited to the realities of the bioregion. Food in one region will not be identical to that in another, nor will everything be available year-round. Local food can reflect the seasons and area residents can reinforce these patterns by eating seasonally. Altering diets to fit the region (not vice-versa) also suggests substituting local foods for long-distance ones, wherever possible. In Michigan, for example, paw paws can substitute nutritionally for tropically grown bananas and oranges. Kale can substitute for imported broccoli and spinach throughout much of the winter. The intent is not to create food self-sufficiency, but rather greater food security and environmental sustainability.

From an ecological standpoint, local food protects and uses the biodiversity that a monocultural system so frequently overrides. In so doing, it takes eaters a step closer to the land itself and to an ecological awareness that personal welfare cannot be disassociated from the welfare of the natural environment and all that reside there. Local food can help balance the prevailing drive to pave over, subdivide or otherwise eliminate green spaces and natural habitats, and to value tax credits above the free services of nature.

In a word, local food is a connector. It connects eaters to area producers, to a bioregion, to a place and to a future. And as a connector it is a vehicle for ethical consumption. It keeps us honest. It insists that we know something about the food we consume (what it is and how it got that way). It requires consideration and responsibility on our part. It signals personal involvement, even some emotional and spiritual attachment. To eat "Big red" the most opinionated rooster on Jane's twenty acre organic farm is an experience entirely different from eating chicken nuggets with or without barbecue sauce. Eating locally is eating more knowledgeably and eating with knowledge becomes more possible when we chose to eat what has a name.

Return to the Index of Synapse 40, Summer 1997