Thread: The carbon footprint of my meal!!!

Bought a load of healthy vegetables for my stir fry tonight and for a change was drawn to towards the origins named on the packaging.



Holy fook!

The combined total miles for the above from origin to Hells Kitchen is a whopping 55,635 miles!!

Green Beans - Morocco 2100 miles

Mushrooms - Ireland 256 miles

Peppers - Spain 1230 miles

Babycorn - India 4724 miles

Shallots - Nottingham UK 97 miles

Carrots - Nairobi 6742 miles

Ginger - Brazil 5561 miles

Spring onions - Egypt 2500 miles

Garlic - Spain 1280 miles

Chilli's - Thailand 5864 miles

And the kicker is all this produce can be grown locally but is far more expensive if you buy it from local sources.

What is going on with business in the world?

Anyhow the money shot, tbf it was an average 7/10



Served with duck and Jasmine rice (no these aren't in the total....or the spices, probably looking at 100k miles now)

It's fvcking QUACKERS!

Fear not Joe. You are doing what thousands of people do every day. You probably bought your choice of vegetables from a single convenient source. The great British supermarket!

Their buyers search the planet for the best quality produce at the lowest price. This means north or South Africa, South America or Asia. People there work for peanuts, so that you can enjoy greater choice of produce. Remember that in doing so, you are supporting Labour so cheap, the buyers can save on shipping costs, and still fill their shelves with affordable products.

You don’t have to waste your time visiting 10 different sources for cheap, quality produce, because the supermarket chains have done it for you. It doesn’t matter to you that a supplier has exploited cheap labour, and ecomomy of scale land use to do it. It doesn’t matter to you that land has been created for produce, by felling trees and clearing small settlements to achieve it. They are copying former Soviet Union methods of scale, to farm intensively on a grand scale.

The alternative is for you to make different choices by shopping for your meat and veg at a local farmers market. It will cost more, and you will have reduced choices, and maybe have to visit two or three different markets to get acceptable choices, but you will be supporting your local economy and reducing supermarket profits. The supermarkets won’t change, so you have to, if you genuinely want to reduce your carbon footprint.

This is the way that food economy has developed, to bring you everything you want, often out of season, just to grow their profits. I can’t imagine too many folk wanting to waste time viisiting 10 different places, just to get what they want, and salve their conscience at the same time. People are too busy today, when both partners work and their time is precious already. Why should you maintain a farmers salary at GBP 30k per annum, just to pay double for your carrots, whe you know the supermarket has already done it for you, by land clearance and cheap labour in a foreign country?

It is a constant battle with your conscience, just to put food on the table!

The Soviet Union did it, using Warsaw Pact countries to provide staples for the mother country to grow communism. Removing trees and hedgerows to create economy of scale, growing wheat to make bread, for Russian peasants to queue up for bread, and work in armament factories. What is next? You choose?