By Deb Stroschein, NAICC president
I was recently speaking with some young students, and they asked me where their food comes from. Because food is grown all over the world, I took this opportunity to explain how far food travels before it makes its way to the table. In this column, I wanted to share my experience and the explanation I provided in hopes it can help you if a similar opportunity to educate about agriculture arises.
Breaking Down The Route
We happened to have a candy bar in this situation, so I decided to explain the ingredients and share an infographic. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.
First, I broke down all the ingredients in the candy bar: cocoa, sugar, wheat, milk, yeast, salt, palm oil, soya and calcium sulphate. I explained to the students that ingredients can come from plants, such as grains, fruits, vegetables and nuts, and also from animals, such as cows and chickens. The “food miles” concept offers a way to study how far food travels to get to the consumer, and it makes you think about where the food we eat originates.
I laid out a map of the world and picked a central location; you could also calculate the travel to your town or state.
We discovered all of the ingredients in this candy bar traveled a total of 30,400 miles to get to the central location. The kids were impressed by that fact.
Transportation Considerations
One of them asked how the food travels. I saw this as an opportunity for another learning experience. I explained how food travels in many modes, including planes, trains and boats, and how transporting food from the field can often involve long distances—as we just discovered. Fuel used during transport can contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, and high food miles will increase a product’s carbon footprint. Therefore, food miles can influence climate change, pollution and energy consumption and lead to spoilage during transportation.
After our long conversation on how far the candy bar traveled, I could tell the kids thought it was a bit sweeter and the chocolate probably tasted a little better than they remembered now that they knew all the ingredients had traveled so far. The learning experience helped them all appreciate it a whole lot more.
