What did the chicken say to the carrot?

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“Hey there orange, I’m from California. Where are you from?”

“Washington,” replied carrot.

So this evening I was making chicken soup from scratch. It’s an easy recipe, but as I shopped for the ingredients, I noted where each item came from to get a sense on how far food really travels. It’s something I never used to think about. Want a mango? Go to the grocery store. Want fresh tomatoes in winter? Go to the grocery store. Oranges? Same answer. I took for granted that we can have pretty much any kind of food fresh year round. 

So where did the ingredients in this simple chicken soup recipe - and it was simple (it came out ‘Chic Simple’ Cooking) come from? While I tried to get them from as close to home as possible (Portland, Oregon), they’re from Oregon, Washington, California and New York. What traveled 3,000 miles for this simple soup? The chicken stock! Most ingredients came from California. In light of rising oil costs and global warming - it’s a sobering thought!

Looking around the grocery store - you quickly realize it takes work to choose food close to home. You can read about a couple who spent a year trying to get all of their food within 100 miles of their home in Vancouver, British Columbia - click here. Or check out their book, “Plenty”

Imagine how much fuel we would collectively save if we all made a little effort to buy most of our food as close to home as possible. You could say it’s food for thought!

Interested in helping fight global warming? Join the Million Faces Project at Thinkfrog.org here - it’s easy!