Of course it's better to get local and organic. But is it worth shipping 'organic' oranges from New Zealand as opposed to getting something with a little bit of pesticides from your local farmers' market?
I don't have a cut-and-dried answer to this, but perhaps it depends on whether your concern is your own personal health (avoid pesticides) or the overall sustainability of the world's economy, and reducing the amount of fuel used to bring food to market.
First choice is always to grow or purchase locally. Shipping organic produce from Chile or New Zealand makes no sense and will greatly decrease as the supply of oil decreases and the cost of oil goes up. Unfortunately, organic is being taken over by megaconglomerate producers. The produce is organic quality, but energy invested from soil to market is way out of line. It makes no sense to buy organic, when fossil-fueled transportation spewed particulate matter one-half way around the world getting the product to the store.
Growing up in Vermont I tended to not to like veggies and most fruits much. Mom basically cooked things to death and unless you had some stuff from your own garden, the stuff that made it to market was not always that appealing. When I moved to California and found "fresh" F&V I was surprised at how much better everything tasted. If you can get fresh and organic it is definitely the way to go. Only by supporting local farmers can we encourage further growth.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Jun 4 2006, 10:10 PM) [snapback]265846[/snapback]</div> Local is better, and organic is still prefered. Most organic produce is local, since it would rot on the long ride over. The stuff grown in other countries is organic, but was either picked too early or frozen along the way. Organic is significantly better in nutrient value than non-organic, but it loses much of that on it's long journey across the ocean if it's not grown here. See my other comments in this thread: http://priuschat.com/index.php?showtopic=2...0&gopid=282057&
