The perennial argument of which is greener, Organic or Local food?
This is a new discussion based around an
old ecolocal post by
Jane. My view is that Local food is better, even if it's not Organic, the lesser food miles still count. In that respect, the
100 Mile Diet is great resource for eating local if you're in the United States. For those of us in the UK, have a look at this postcode-based search engine for local producers.
Elsewhere, there are more and more articles cropping up on the web about this issue, like this one:
"Sometimes, though, local versus organic is a false choice--sometimes you can't find organic, or the local choice is bad"
The more I read, the more the 'local' choice is the better one, especially now that more and more supermarkets are pushing organic food in large quantities, causing the producers to cut corners once again.
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hi buddy, my heads full of useless shit, like a morsel of food travels 1400 miles to reach a mouth, or the national grid loses 70% of the energy it produces from fuel, i could fill a book of my own with this crap, but whats the point of regugitating?
take nuclear fuel, ever here of thorium? its the greener option, you can hold it in your hand, altho it takes uranium to kickstart it, theres also much less waste to deal with too, but you know, with a million pounds of depleated uranium oxide dust blowing around in iraq, which the us military dont want you to know about, it is used in armour pearcing shells, i would,nt hold out much hope for thorium. i,ve lost the thread of what i intended, qh yes, organic v local, i use an ultrasonic washer to detox my fruit+veg, its a samson, i,m a raw foodie you see and since i dont drink on account of toxic water supplies, i only use a juicer.which supplys liquid sunshine to revitalize me.and you if you so wish, the soil is deplete of nutrition, you cant hope to eat enough to be hale,without spending half your time on the bog,so get a juicer and increase your vitality.you know, it takes about 4000 calories of energy to produce a lettuce, of 50 cals. nutrition, its a minefield
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Hi Jack,
Welcome to ecolocal, nice post :)
I don't mind you regurgitating some of the more interesting facts in this thread, I'd be interested to read them to be honest. I'd never heard of throium, for instance, so please feel free to share some more of those nuggets.
Back on the organic vs. local thread, I just spotted this local recipe guide from over at the telegraph.co.uk website today. And here's a more considered post on the commercialisation of organic food elsewhere on ecolocal too.
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hi duncan, thorium is being studied by dr hashemy-nezhad in australia, they must have lots. its reported to give out much more power, about 50 times more and have a shorter afterlife, i think 350yrs. nuggets coming up, out of every £ spent at the supermarket the farmer gets 5p, the chemical company 30p and the supermarket 65p.hardly seems fair,does it?
4 fruit, 15 plant species, 8 livestock species account for 90% of global food production, just 27 items, the others provides variety.
cotton uses 10% of all agricultural land and a quarter of all the fertilisers, pesticides, etc, a very toxic harvest.
animal protein has been known to be the cause of cancer since 1968, read THE CHINA STUDY isbn 1-932100-38-5.
about one third of total spending in supermarkets is on soft drinks and bottled water, nestle own 75 different brands alone.
it costs councils about £28 to dispose of 1 ton of green waste at composting facilitys, it sells for £7 a ton.
trees are being investigated for electric supplies, honest.
well thats enough for now duncan, i will just added that an organic allotement i visit uses tons of horse manure each year and has tested positive for arsenic and mercury amongst other
soil contaminants, i dont eat anything from there of course, but its good company.
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Treehugger has a few things to say about Thorium too:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/10/th_solv...
And they point out this blog about Thorium in particular:
http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/
Seems like I've got some reading to do...
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Personally, I would take locally grown over organic. In our grocery stores, the organic food always is bruised and half rotten. I at least know that locally grown has less chemicals on it to keep it ripe.
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That's a good point ,the local food often looks more appealling than the organic, but is that because we have got used to having "perfect" fruit and veg that has been grown using chemicals to get them just right, then waxed (in the case of a lot of fruit) to get them to shine, yet organic produce is "as is", therefore not as shiny or regular in its appearance? If you smell it, it just about always smells better - it smells of what it is! Organic produce is less likely to be forced, therefore is a natural product.
Having said that, I think that htere are many things where local is MUCH better... potatoes being a key one... season is also important.
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