Local Food or Less Meat?

A while back I did a Live Local Challenge, attempting to consume only food produced within 100 kilometres of my home for a week. You can check out the results and learnings from the process in a series of blog posts from 2009.

Since that time I've been much more conscious of what I consume and where it comes from. Last week we screened Food Inc. at Social Innovation Sydney and that kick started me thinking about the issue again.

Then this article popped up in my RSS feed: Local Food or Less Meat? Data Tells The Real Story.

Andrew Winston summarises the research in a US context:

As a numbers geek, I love this kind of analysis. Now for the caveats: none of this data should dissuade anyone from eating locally also. The footprint benefits are real, even if dwarfed by food choice. And the benefits to local economies and smaller farms are very important.

But let me repeat: just moving away from meat for one day a week is more effective than buying everything you eat locally. This number will be surprising to most people, but it's partly why the global call for "Meatless Mondays" is gaining steam, with school systems and universities adopting the approach in cities around the world, from Baltimore to Tel Aviv.

Source: Andrew Winston, Local Food or Less Meat? Data Tells The Real Story

I suspect that the distances mentioned in the research hold for Australia too due to our large land mass and lack of local farming close to most cities. Thus it becomes clear that if you can't decide to become vegetarian full time then there are substantial benefits to replacing a number of meals each week with vegetarian choices.  That's what we're doing at my place.