Did you know that the food miles are increasing?
This is because we want to have seasonal food all year round. Today we buy more processed food and we want to pay as little as possible for it so our demand for foreign food has augmented.
A food mile is ‘a mile over which a food item is transported during the journey from producer to consumer, as a unit of measurement of the fuel used to transport it.’
Take strawberries for an example, we want to enjoy them all year round but, as seasonal fruits dependant on sunshine, we can not grow them in the winter in the UK.
Therefore, they have to be imported from countries with warmer climates, such as Spain. The vehicles used to transport the strawberries are highly likely to use diesel, which is a fossil fuel.
Not only are fossil fuels non- renewable but the transport vehicles emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing climate change which in turn is melting the ice caps, causing sea levels to rise.
Therefore, we must do something to change the way we eat. Buying local and seasonal produce and growing as much food as we can in our gardens are ways we can benefit the planet.
By James Sullivan
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