Chiles 1 Loren Chiles AP English Composition Mrs.

Wright 5 November 2012 Eating locally is no doubt a fun way to spread wonderful stories, experience more variety, and eat fresher, better tasting food. However, despite many of the allegations made by the locavore movements supporters, it is in no way better for the environment, economy, and health of a person than the current system we havein fact, its in many ways more detrimental. The crutch that the locavore movement bases its logical on is indeed the issue of transportation. It makes some sense; buy food grown locally and it has to travel less miles causing less carbon being emitted into the air thereby reducing our greenhouse gases. However, transportation pales in comparison to production in terms of percentage of greenhouse gases emitted by the supply chain of food (Source D.) Unfortunately, the locavore movements energy is off point and detrimental depending on the circumstances. It may seem counterintuitive but think about it. If lamb raised in the U.K. is done so under intense factory-like production conditions, it is more strenuous on the environment for a Londoner to buy locally than to import farm-raised lamb from New Zealand (Source C.) It argued that locavorism, in theory, can be incredibly beneficial to economies at home; however, its not a very pragmatic solution to given many variables. Also, in terms of our modern global economy, locavorism is a horrendous movement. Obviously, some communities have a much easier time eating locally when they live near and abundance of farms as compared

Chiles 2 to those who live in urban areas. Since, 80 percent of the U.S. population lives in large, densely populated urban areas its not illogical to say the movement will have a hard time gaining national steam (Source F.) Compared on a global scale this assertion is even more valid. Although, small rural communities will obviously benefit from an emphasis on eating locally, the livelihood of communities that a majority of their economy is exporting food is greatly threatened. Take Kenya for example (Source C.) With 1.5 million sub-Saharan farmers making their way by selling their crops abroad, its obvious wed simply be shifting the economic gains from the balanced market it is today to giving all the money to communities with the access to a large variety of food. A final misconception with locavorism is that it is healthier to do so. However, as confirmed by Professor Marion Nestle (Source B), the nutrition issue is a red herring. Although eating locally typically means people are making healthier choices, you do not have to eat locally to be healthy. On average produce coming from closer distance retain more of their nutrients; however, if you are spending double the money on these marginal differences in nutrients, it almost make more sense to buy more lesser-quality produce for the same price. In addition, buying locally could in theory keep you from eating the healthiest foods possible if you are restricting yourself from enjoying nutrient-rich foreign delicacies. In the end, the locavore movement is essentially a trendnothing more. It tries to glorify something fun and quirky by quantifying it as having significant economic, environmental, and nutritional results. Buying into such movements is a very detrimental thing to do without looking into the facts. Of course, looking into the effects of this movement specifically its obviously a bad thing to jump on.

Chiles 3