There are two new healthy food choices for those who are concerned about eating right, and a new debate has sprung up in recent months about the relative merits of organic food vs. local food. Many people, if they answered without thinking about it, would probably assume that local and organic are the same thing. But, in fact, they are not. Not all organic food is grown locally; not all local food is grown organically. So what is local food, what is organic food, and--most pertinent question of them all--which is better?
Local food refers simply to food grown locally. The standard definition is usually considered to be food grown within 50 miles of the place where it is eaten, although some definitions call for a stricter 30 miles, and others are lax and allow for 100 or even 200 miles.
Organic food, on the other hand, is food grown without using herbicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers. Much organic food originates in California, which means it isn't local for most of the country. It also means that in order for your "organic" food to be shipped to your grocery store, the company must use huge amounts of fossil fuels to store and transport this organic food, sometimes all the way across the country. The food, when it arrives, is no longer at its peak of freshness, and even though you might not ingest any chemicals in eating it, the earth has.
Looking at it strictly from the standpoint of what you put into your mouth, the organic food would at first seem to be better. Broadening our view to take in the damage done to the earth by transporting it so far shows that this may not always be the case. But even taking the narrow view holds some surprises; advocates of eating locally rather than organically would say that because food depreciates, in a sense, when it's no longer at the peak of its freshness, the food you put into your mouth no longer has the same nutrient content as the local food, which hasn't traveled as far, but has been grown using chemicals.
In the end, which of the two options is better is purely a personal choice. Only one thing is certain. Of the two healthy food choices, the best choice is finding organic food grown locally, and eating that.
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