Just another reason to eat locally

Anticipating the arrival of my new Excalibur dehydrator, I’ve had so many ideas about what to do with it I’ve had to starting writing my ideas down so I don’t forget them: Watermelon candy, bumbleberry fruit leather, crackers of all sorts, soup bouillion and dried soup mixes, cinnamon-spiced dried pears, home-grown dried herb and seasoning mixes, no-bake granola bars… The list really is endless, even if it were restricted using to local food.

Although I am making a more committed effort to eat as much locally grown food as possible, I did have visions of once or twice a year drying a small load of oranges to make candied orange rinds and grind dried orange slices into a fruit powder to add to baked goods, sauces, salad dressings, etc. But, as always, my being nosey about where my food comes from and what impact its production has on the environment leads me to articles like this one from the Weekly Times in Australia: Orange production leaves hefty carbon footprint.

Better put, this article from The New York Times includes a graph that illustrates how 60% of the carbon footprint of Tropicana’s production of orange juice results just from agricultural practices.

After reading the Weekly Times article, it occurred to me that were a person to live in an orange-growing region, eating locally grown oranges wouldn’t necessarily have a low carbon footprint due to the enormous impact large-scale growing activities have on the local land and water. Also, the article seems to discuss only the orange growing activities in the United States. What of the varieties oranges grown in China and Brazil and flown to locations all over North America in the dead of winter? I wasn’t under any illusions before that orange production is all that environmentally friendly, but at least reading articles included on several pages of this search on Google clarified my perspective a little more.

My verdict? I’ve never been crazy about oranges or orange juice, though I do like me a seedless baby sugar Mandarin. But I’m not just not that interested in helping destroy someone else’s home, whether it be terrestrial or aquatic. Oranges are definitely off my plate, no matter if they are conventional or organic.