by Melvin Palmer

Created on: July 23, 2009

You're a grape in Chile and hanging out with a bunch of your friends. Your picked and put in a truck, then on a plane, back in a truck, and finally in a store somewhere in the United States of America. What a way to go. Compare that to grapes grown by someone a couple hundred miles away or less. The fruit is picked and placed in a truck, that moves to a storage building. Next the edibles are back in a truck and on your way to the market. One trip covers thousands of miles and the other a few hundred. More energy is used in the longer journey and so more pollution happens.

The further away from home that your food is grown, the more carbon is emitted into the air. Conversely the closer your food is grown the less carbon is spewed into our environment. It is easy to see how your purchase in the supermarket either decreases or increases global warming.

How about that hot tomato in Mexico? How much did it get sprayed with pesticides? Is the government regulating the chemicals farmers use? How green is the fruit picked, robbing the consumer from the full benefit of its nutritional peak? Compare that to a tomato that was picked a day or two before a farmers' market. This tomato is ripe and at it's nutritional peak.

Thinking globally, any pesticide sprayed anywhere is not environmentally good. Of course when there is a true need for pesticides, the most environmentally friendly and effective one needs to be used. This is part of the reason our great country regulates the pesticides that may be used.

Simplicity is the apex of sophistication. Farmer markets may be the most environmentally friendly source of food on the planet. The farmer or employee is available to answer questions about chemicals used and distances traveled. Each year in our small town in the San Joaquin Valley, Geisler Farms opens a stand near a busy intersection. They are a family business. Corn, cantaloupe, tomato, onion and zucchini are freshly picked that day. The flavor is astounding. I can eat the corn raw because it is sweet and juicy.

For us to be responsible to the environment, we need to buy our food as close as we can to our home. One way to do this is to by food in season. Another way is to determine where your food is from. It is an easy step towards easing pollution.

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