Salon.com > Roberta Kwok http://www.salon.com Mon, 20 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Is local food really miles better? http://www.salon.com/2008/06/24/food_miles/ http://www.salon.com/2008/06/24/food_miles/#comments Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:28:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//food/eat_drink/2008/06/24/food_miles When I arrive at San Francisco's Ferry Plaza Farmers Market on a gray Saturday morning, I do my best to ignore the food. It's not easy. There are mandarin oranges, fresh eggs, piles of perky greens and samples of everything from goat cheese to dried kiwi. But I'm not here to eat; I'm here to hunt for numbers.

A few weeks earlier, I noticed a page on the market's Web site that asks, "How Far Does Food Travel to Get to Your Plate?" Too far, it concludes. According to a 2001 study by the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, the average apple travels 1,555 miles to a Chicago terminal market where wholesalers sell produce to grocery stores. A San Francisco Farmers Market apple, on the other hand, only travels about 105 miles to the Ferry Plaza market building.

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