Local Eats

   Today, during a trip home to Murfreesboro, TN, I embarked on a journey to my town's farmers market to look at what local, organic foods my hometown had to offer. From freshly killed and frozen local chickens to decadent organic treats there was much to see, and I came back home with quite a few goodies. As we move toward a sustainable future, farmers markets and local-foods in general will be essential. 

   These means for change will contribute to the decentralization of the food system, which will in turn provide great benefits for our environment. Currently, our food system is horribly inefficient in terms of fossil fuels used per calorie of food. There has been a substantial shift in our food system toward a heavily fossil fuel dependent system. In 1940, we produced 2.3 calories of food for every calorie of fossil fuel. Though, we now produce a mere 1/10th of a calorie of food for every calorie of fossil fuel used. This is because of the huge fossil fuel costs in producing and transporting the food I eat; most of this cost could be eliminated were my food to come from closer, and if it were less dependent upon fertilizers and other fossil fuel dependent resources. The extremely high amount of fossil fuel required to transport food is unsustainable, and is contributing to the degradation of the environment. It is greatly due to the distance our food travels that the environmental costs of our food are so great. New means of buying the food we eat, such as farmers markets, will be key to this change.