Did You Know?
- Andean farmers once grew some 4,000 potato varieties, each with its own name, flavor, and use, ranging in size from tiny to gigantic and covering the color spectrum from indigo-purple to red, orange, yellow and white. It use to be that people ate what they grew locally and what was in season. With the increased appetite for produce that was out of season (eating strawberries in October as an example), and the increased demand to ship produce all over the world, farmers had to start breeding varieties that held up in boxcars, trucks, or ship’s cargo. Now, even in the regions of Peru least affected by the modern market, only a few dozen potato varieties are widely grown.
- We put as much fossil fuels in our refrigerators as we do our cars?
- We consume 400 gallons of oil per year, per person, about 17% of our nation’s energy for agriculture? That includes tractors, tillers, fertilizer, insecticides, drying, packaging, shipping, etc…
- But getting the crop from seed to harvest only takes 1/5 of the total fossil fuel used for food.
- Each food item in a typical US meal has traveled an average of 1,500 miles!
- If every US Citizen ate just one meal a week, any meal, composed of locally and organically grown meat or produce, we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels every week. (Animal, Vegetable Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver)
So what is the cost of eating
Strawberries in October?
