By Penelope A. Domogo, MD
Food mileage is the distance the food is transported from the time of creation until it reaches the consumer (meaning the diner). It is important to know this to assess how healthy your food is – to yourself, your family and the environment. Weh?
Let’s see. “Time of creation” means the time that the raw food was produced, not the processed one. For example, the time of creation of hamburger is not in the fast food store that sells burgers but goes back all the way to the pastureland where the cow was grown (somewhere in New Zealand kaya?), to the onions raised in Ilocos perhaps and to the wheat that was made into flour. We all know wheat is not grown in the Philippines so let us assume the wheat flour came from Mother America. How about the ketchup? Let us assume it’s a product of our bananas in Mindanao. Now that you have identified the sources of your hamburger, what is the health implication? So what if my food is imported? (meaning not from your own locality). Let us see at least three ways by which food is adversely affected by increasing its mileage. First, it means that your food is not fresh. Meat rots very easily so how does beef from New Zealand reach you in the Philippines? Frozen siguro. If food is not fresh, then surely some life-giving nutrients have been lost, that’s a fact so let us not debate on this. Second, some artificial chemicals have been added to the raw materials so that they will reach you “like they are fresh”, so they will not rot. Wheat, like rice, is yummy food for beetles, you know those teeny weeny black crawling creatures we call bokbok. How come they are not nabokbok by the time they reach the baker (or so we think because the bread does not have that nabokbok taste)? How about bananas? They easily ferment but how come your ketchup is so sweet? Some unnatural chemicals have been added to your food and the sad thing is we don’t even care to know what these are. Third, if the food is not from our region, then it may not be appropriate for us. In this aspect, we need to dig down to our faith in a loving Creator who does not have any favorites. If our Creator did not give dairy cows for us here in the Philippines, do you think he’s unfair? Or did he give us something else? Do you believe that He loves winter countries more that they have all these milk, meat, bread and cheese? Do you believe that we need to buy these so that we will be healthy? Tayo pa na considered poor country? Tayo pa ang bibili sa products ng mayaman? What kind of God would do that? What kind of God do you believe in? Studies and common sense shown that food grown in one region provides the best nutrients for people and animals in that region. So congratulations to those who have been planting vegetables naturally during quarantine because you have the shortest food mileage! Keep planting naturally!
There’s more to food mileage. As we stated earlier, food mileage also impacts on the environment as it has bearing on how much energy is spent and how much “waste” is generated in producing, processing and transporting your food. For example, raising a cow definitely requires much more energy ( time, effort, food, water) than growing camote. Right? Right. Naturally, a cow also generates much more waste than camote. Just think of the fart of a cow and the mounds of chewed grass it scatters on its path. Camote does not even have waste. If you are an Igorot like me, then you give all the trimmings from the camote to the pig. That’s why the pig was a necessary “talaken” in the Igorot home- it ensured zero waste. Take note that we only discussed food production and yet we already see the stark difference between eating hamburger versus boiled camote.
We proceed to food processing. Processing a burger again requires meat to be ground then mixed with onions and what have you (hopefully no MSG) then fried (in oil, of course). Grinding meat also requires electrical or manual energy. Then how about the plastic packaging of these products? Those add to more toxic waste. Whereas, processing boiled camote will just be boiling it. Again, compare the energy and waste generated in these two instances. Lastly, how does the food reach you? If you want that fast-food burger and you are in Sagada, you will need long-distance transport- so consider the gasoline, its fumes, the engine oil, the driver, etc. If you want boiled camote and you did not grow your own, you can buy from the local market so you will need energy to walk (assuming its ECQ and there’s no private transportation). I guess you will not any generate waste here, except carbon dioxide (meaning bring your own bayong so no plastic).
The more energy is used, the greater strain it is on the environment. Think of how much energy you use everyday then you multiply it with the billions of people around the world. You can imagine how we stress our environment just by our eating practices. Further, the more waste one generates, the worse it is for our environment, of course. We see this phenomenon every day in the city – mounds of unsegregated waste, smog, polluted canals.
In general, the longer the food mileage, the more energy is used and the more waste is generated (in our body as well as in the environment). The longer the food mileage, the more we jeopardize our health and environment. Bless those who continued or who turned gardener/farmer this covid times and who are eating the fresh organic food that they produce! By shortening your food mileage, you are preventing covid and you are also healing our environment.***
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“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5
