Air Travel must be the single biggest hit to the environment of anything, on a per-traveler, in the moment standpoint. My share of the fuel being consumed on any flight I am on must be substantial. As a nomad traveler it is difficult to grapple with the sustainability of air travel. Air travel is a gluttonous endeavor, worse and unforgivable for the one percenters flying private.
We have minimized our travel footprint where possible. In four years of full-time traveling nomads we flew only about 20 one-way trips; much less I suspect than a lot of folks, and boy did we get some sights and thousands of miles in between. We had rented a car just one day, until covid hit. During covid when public transportation was shut down, a car was the only option. The rental agency said we kept them in business. The bulk of our travel has been via train, bus, ferry, or walking. We still opt for train travel if possible, more environmentally friendly and we like it; it is a lovely way to travel.
What travels more than we do? Answer: food
Another avenue of opportunity to reduce our footprint has come to the forefront of my attention. I started reading Barbara Kingsolver’s book: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (I am not done yet, but Earth Day is today, so now is when this post must be published!). I have become fixated on how far our food flies.
Especially food in America. Think about any given processed food. A box of cereal, containing an unrecyclable bag of cereal. The cereal was processed somewhere far from the store where you bought it. But even before processing, all the component parts were transported from places afar: nuts from one country, grains from another, sugar somewhere else. And the box, and the plastic bag. Just think about how many transportation miles that one box of cereal represents.
Think about our vegetables, how many of the vegetables you bought last week came from your state? Even for Californians, this ratio will be low. We enjoy the luxury of any fruit available at any time, but what a price we pay. First, none of it tastes like god intended. Second, it is a huge burden on the earth to have all this product flying around the world. Third, we have lost the art and joy of cooking and eating foods grown in the season, during that season. There is a real joy to grab the juicy peaches in June when they are ripe, you will appreciate the wait, strawberries at Easter time, pumpkin soup in fall. That’s right, in the rest of the world, pumpkin is food.
And then meat. Obviously fish is sourced all over the world, frozen and brought to your town. But also farmed meat. First the poor animals are trucked to a feedlot. Where they are crowded and force fed grain they are not meant to eat. Grain that has been trucked or shipped from afar. These feedlots are probably also not in your state, so the meat is again transported. Super large scale farming practices have diminished the nutritional value of the meat (read the book for a better explanation), stressed the animals their whole lives, and substantially added to the fuel bill. And it really is not a lot cheaper for the consumer after all that.
How it is done differently in Europe
The major impetus for our move to Europe started with food. At the time I was only grasping a thread of the story. Food tasted better in Europe. It was fresher for a start. Why? Because it was produced locally. So it could be picked nearer to ripening and make it to a plate without spoiling.
Most Americans have never tasted a properly ripened tomato unless you grew some yourself. And then there is the meat. Not everywhere has beef like in Ireland (that is really something to behold if you are ever there), but every place in Europe has its local meat star. Here in Iberia, it is the pork. Range fed on acorns from the cork trees. Plus, since we live in a fishing town, we have fresh caught fish available six days a week at the local fish market.
Genetically modified grains and seeds are mostly illegal in Europe, as are many of the farming practices commonplace in the United States. You should see how small the chickens are without those hormones in their feed. People with gluten intolerance may not have any problems eating wheat in Europe. This is why the trade agreements with the UK and EU are tricky. They don’t want our chlorinated chicken or BSE cows (we hear those terms a lot here in reference to USA produced food).
These days in the USA, you can find any fruit or veg, any day of the year, at a reasonable price. In NZ if you want a zucchini out of season it will cost about $25/kilo. Why, because it came from abroad and there is a cost for that travel. Most kiwis eat local produce and still know what is in season when. We have lost that knowledge in the USA.
Doing My Part
I am on a mission to take travel out of my food. It travels more than I do, so if I reduce that, I am doing more for the environment than by reducing my own excursions (something I really do not want to curb).
Sourcing local food is not hard in Europe; small farming operations are still everywhere. Most towns have farmers markets, butchers and coastal towns have fish markets. It is the norm to shop most every day and buy ingredients for just a dinner or breakfast. No one eats day-old bread, always bought on the day of use, and no good thereafter because it contains no preservatives. I would love to have our own chickens, but for now, purchase eggs at the farmers market, along with local cheeses, honey and all the fruit and veg in season.
A few things are going to be hard to eliminate. We eat a lot of spinach and I do not know if I can forgo this except for its short season. A bag of washed baby spinach from who-knows-where is really a no-no, but I have one in the fridge. We like salmon and it is not a fish in our local waters. Coffee doesn’t grow here, but that will not be forfeited. I do not have a local chocolate source either, but I bet I can find one.
After no time at all, I have discovered an additional bonus. Heavy transported food tends to be ultra packaged: the old plastic, surrounded by cardboard routine. Much less packaging, if any is involved buying local products. So my recycling bin is getting a break too.
With just a little work by asking some questions, I think we can take the bulk of travel out of our food. Easier for folks that speak the language of their countries, but I get by: Onde esse alimento é cultivado (where is this food grown).
Last year my Earth Day topic was about the impact of the clothing industry on the environment. Still relevant to the packing obsessive traveler.
I totally agree. It’s a hard thing to wrap your head around unless you farmed or have a great farmers market and a great local food co-op. People that are marginalized have far fewer choices than us so it behooves us to do whatever we can I am so grateful that we have a farmers market and a lovely food co-op that supports and uses, mostly locally sustained agriculture.
The benefits of buying local just drill down and down. By definition less fuel. A big deal in itself. Then the preservation of the local species and seeds, providing well needed biodiversity. Then the local jobs. I am still oversimplifying, it makes sooo much difference. So easy for us in Europe, it will be much harder for Americans because local small farming is mostly lost there. If you haven’t read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I really recommend it.