To reduce your carbon footprint, would you go as far as ditch foreign food like banana/oranges and eat local?

Question

To reduce your carbon footprint, would you go as far as ditch foreign food like banana/oranges and eat local?

Answer 1

shoot. why bother?  i'll just buy carbon credits from al gore.  that's what he says to do.

Answer 2

What local?  

Ten months of the year all fruits and vegetables get shipped in from warm places like BC and California.  And for two months in the summer you can get local strawberries and corn on the cob.

Answer 3

***Smug Alert***

I'm growing my own raspberries, strawberries, rhubarb, apples and plums. Additionally, I try not to buy anything but locally produced fruit and veg but bananas and melons are too good not to buy.

I would be prepared to pay a lot more money for them though.

Let's have massive taxes on imports that reflect the harm the food miles do to the planet. That'll reduce everyone's carbon footprint.

Also, buy a hybrid car. Let's be part of the solution. Good for you. Parp, sniff.

***Smugness Ends***

Answer 4

I do try to be mindful and buy British wherever possible i.e. if there are South African apples and British apples I'd always buy the British ones to save air-miles.  Sometimes though it's just not practical, such as in your example of bananas.  I do try to buy in season though, English strawberries in June are 100 times better than Spanish ones in December!

Answer 5

"carbon footprints" are the equivalent of environmental extortion.

Answer 6

I already have. I made the change gradually, and it wasn't too difficult. I was surprised to find that my way of life is also cheaper and easier. I get regular deliveries of produce from a CSA farm, plus I have my own garden. I go to a supermarket less than once a month! By the way, I am growing a dwarf banana and orange tree. I put them on the patio in the summer, and in a south facing window in the winter.

Answer 7

I try to eat everything local that can be grown here (UK) and therefore,  I also eat seasonally - no wooden strawberries in December or tasteless tomatoes in February. Given these restricitions I feel it not unreasonable to eat imported exotics, remember it's perfectly possible to grow oranges and even pineapples here, altho' prohibitively expensive. I would be very reluctant to give up bananas and oranges, though.

Given global warning, in 20 years or so your question simply won't apply!