Why we should worry less about food miles

We all want to do our best to help the planet – but shopping locally isn’t necessarily the solution. Boudicca Fox-Leonard reports

Cucumbers wrapped in plastic, avocados from Peru, British tomatoes in winter… if you have ever stood in the supermarket aisle with an empty basket and a feeling of uncertainty about what to put in it, then these may represent some of the issues troubling you the most.

We all want to do our best for our health, for those who grow our food and for the planet. But as consumers we can feel stuck between a desire to make thoughtful choices and what’s actually available for us to buy.

This was where author and journalist Louise Gray found herself, with a screaming toddler, two years ago. As she buckled and put plastic pouches of puréed fruit into her trolley, she felt the weight of the world on her shoulders.

She had already written extensively about her quest to eat less but better meat, chronicled in her book The Ethical Carnivore, and now she pondered the same questions about the pears, parsnips, apples and avocados that end up in infant food.

What did she know of their carbon footprint, air miles, or the water used to grow them? She decided to find out.

With farmers on one side of her family and greengrocers on the other (Rankins of Edinburgh) she was better placed than most to understand how veg ends up on our plates. However, it being the middle of the pandemic, Gray couldn’t fly off to Colombia to investigate the banana trade, and nor did she think she should.

She did start to probe the stories around some of the common ingredients that you will find in your kitchen at home – potatoes, lettuce, green beans, strawberries.

What she discovered was that air miles aren’t always as awful as you think. And that carbon footprint isn’t the only measure of a good tomato.

“I did start trying to find answers and it’s very hard to find a straight answer,” she says. “So now I make decisions based on stories I know.”

Today when she goes to the supermarket she feels more self-assured in her choices.

“I don’t know whether I feel like I can now walk out with a bag full of stuff that’s ethical. I’m too busy and greedy for that. But I do know more about it, and that’s a comfort I can give people.”

While she will always try to buy seasonally where possible, she appreciates that there are now right and wrong choices. That in a global food network there are no black and white answers.

“Food isn’t perfect, but because I know the stories

I can find the nuance.”

Her plea to the rest of us consumers is that we are more forgiving of ourselves. “If you are beating yourself up and feeling anxious, I don’t think you’ll make good decisions in the long term. You might make extreme decisions in the short term.”

In the meantime, here are some food stories to munch over.

Carbon footprint is not the only measure of a good tomato

‘Avocado Anxiety: And Other Stories About Where Your Food Comes From’ by Louise Gray is published on Feb 16 by Bloomsbury (RRP 16.99)