Eat Here: Reclaiming Homegrown Pleasures in a Global Supermarket

brian halweil

Eating locally is a growing movement that is good for your health―but even better for the planet. Everyone everywhere depends increasingly on long-distance food. Since 1961 the tonnage of food shipped between nations has grown fourfold. In the United States, food typically travels between 1,500 and 2,500 miles from farm to plate―as much as 25 percent farther than in 1980. For some, the long-distance food system offers unparalleled choice. But it often runs roughshod over local cuisines, varieties, and agriculture, while consuming staggering amounts of fuel, generating greenhouse gases, eroding the pleasures of face-to-face interactions, and compromising food security. Fortunately, the long-distance food habit is beginning to weaken under the influence of a young, but surging, local-foods movement. From peanut-butter makers in Zimbabwe to pork producers in Germany and rooftop gardeners in Vancouver, entrepreneurial farmers, start-up food businesses, restaurants, supermarkets, and concerned consumers are propelling a revolution that can help restore rural areas, enrich poor nations, and return fresh, delicious, and wholesome food to cities.

Genres foodnonfictionschoolsustainability

256 pages, Paperback

First published November 30,2004

This edition

Format: 256 pages, Paperback
Published: November 17, 2004 by W. W. Norton \u0026 Company
ISBN: 9780393326642
ASIN: 0393326640
Language: English

About the author

brian halweil

Brian Halweil is a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute covering issues of food and agriculture. He joined Worldwatch in 1997 as the John Gardner Public Service Fellow from Stanford University, where he had established a student-run organic farm on campus. The farm was community-supported and sold produce to the university and local restaurants. In addition, Brian has set up community-supported farms and organic farms/orchards throughout California and assisted farmers who were making the shift from chemical to organic agriculture.

Brian writes from Sag Harbor, New York, where he and his wife tend a home garden and orchard.

from http://www.worldwatch.org/user/33