Locavore—or not

Locovore

lo·ca·vore noun.

1. A person who primarily eats locally grown food.

I was never impressed by the idea of buying food grown locally. I have no objection to local food, but some things cannot be grown in the local climate, and if something could be grown halfway around the world and still be cheaper than a local option I was happy to buy it. And I had heard that the cost per item of transporting large quantities of food may be similar to a farmer bringing in produce to the market.

But it turns out the cost of transport is only a minor component of the energy used producing food anyway.

In the real world, not everything is equal. Some places have more water or better pasture land. It makes more sense to grow a tomato in an unheated greenhouse and truck it then to heat a local greenhouse. A U.S. study showed that about 4 per cent of food energy signature was from long-distance transportation and 83 per cent from production.

Fresh food may sometimes taste nicer: mangos in season in Australia or Asia certainly beat our imported ones from Mexico; I buy canned here. But buy what you like at an acceptable price and ignore the distance it took to get to your plate.

Sugar much?

Sugar stacks has some interesting visuals on how much sugar you are consuming. Quite a lot. Cubes of sugar are 4 g each. Someone has compiled several of the comparisons into one picture.

Not that I oppose sugar any more than other forms of carbohydrate. But as many of us get more carbohydrate than we burn up, it may be prudent to decrease empty calories: soda, cordial, and fruit juice.

Candy Irony

Candy Dynamics sell the Toxic Waste brand of candy bars which they import from Pakistan. Their Nuclear Sludge variety has tested high for lead prompting a recall.

A recent test performed by the California Department of Public Health has indicated that a lot (#8288A) of the cherry flavor of the above-listed product contains elevated levels of lead (0.24 parts per million; the U.S. FDA tolerance is 0.1 ppm) that potentially could cause health problems, particularly for infants, small children, and pregnant women.

Out of an abundance of caution, the company has determined to recall all lots and all flavors of the product distributed from the product's inception in 2007 through January 2011.

The products are identified as: Toxic Waste® Nuclear Sludge® Cherry Chew Bar (UPC 0 89894 81430 6), Toxic Waste® Nuclear Sludge® Sour Apple Chew Bar (UPC 0 10684 81410 7), and Toxic Waste® Nuclear Sludge® Blue Raspberry Chew Bar (UPC 0 89894 81420 7). Each chew bar has a net wt. of 0.7 oz (20 g).

No other "Toxic Waste®" brand product is affected by this recall.

No illnesses have been reported to date in connection with this problem.

This is unlikely to be of significance, maximum allowances are likely to be well below any level that causes harm. Still, somewhat amusing.