Just Food

Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly by James McWilliams

Eating local will not do much to help the environment. Going vegetarian will. That sums up this book. There are a lot of other details in here to think about. We need to be able to feed a vast population of the earth. Eating some local produce may be nice, but easily feed the world. Local food can also consume more energy than food produced far away (even when transportation is considered.) Local eating has also been co-opted by other entities, resulting in less beneficial results. People may be encouraged to eat "local" Iowa food, even if it is trucked across the state.

There are a number of other discussions of spurious agricultural practices. Fear of genetically modified crops was spurred by bad butterfly research. Fertilizer is helpful when consumed by crops, but detrimental when it runs off to waterways. Preventing overflow by applying the right amount of fertilizer can help reduce the negative impacts, while still allowing high levels of production. Organic agriculture tends not to be scalable (and has it's own list of "approved" chemicals.) Eliminating tilling can be very helpful. The author is very keen on Aquaculture when done right. (but could "proper" aquaculture really be scaled appropriately?) Deforestation for meat production is a significant issue in the world.

The big takeaway is that we have to consider both the local impact of food as well as the global impact of our food choices.