Does buying local reduce fuel consumption?

Yesterday I was walking down Houston Street (here in New York it's pronounced "HOW stun") and saw a handwritten sign on butcher paper in the window at Whole Foods. "Buying local reduces fuel consumption."

It's one of those things that seems so obvious it's not worth stating. It has to be true, right?

I'm not sure it's so clear. Consider this scenario, which for some reason is on my mind this Thanksgiving week...

A mail order company ships a loaf of bread made in Ann Arbor 250 miles to Chicago. The recipient in Chicago could have driven three miles round trip to get local bread. Does the shipped bread use eighty times more fuel?

Maybe if it was driven there overnight by one person, hands sweaty on the wheel. But if it was delivered by UPS it went as part of a route combined with other packages. And before that, in Ann Arbor, it was delivered from a bakery to the distribution warehouse on a route. And later, within Chicago city limits, it was delivered by a courier on a route.

How much fuel does each route take? I don't have any hard data here, but we can make some reasonable assumptions and probably get pretty close. Let's look at one leg, Ann Arbor to Chicago. I'll guess a full truck carries about 2,500 boxes, which is a pretty fair assumption given what I know goes in our trucks out back. That means for this 250 mile trip each box only travels one tenth of a mile, fuel-wise. Let's say an 18 wheeler gets 5 mpg. That means the loaf used 1/50 of a gallon on its Ann Arbor to Chicago route.

Use the same logic for the other two routes and you can work out hundreds of ways a 250 mile bread actually travels less than two miles and consumes less fuel than a local loaf.

There are lots of good reasons to shop local. I'm not knocking it by any means. I've made the scenario deliberately simplistic. Change a few numbers and things can go a different way, of course. I just wanted to show the economics are not necessarily as cut and dry as some signs may make them out to be.

Roasted Cauliflower & Tarragon

Time for another fall recipe using a cheap, plentiful, seasonal ingredient.

This recipe is much simpler than brussel sprouts with pancetta. In fact, it's so cheap, easy and ridiculously healthy you should probably stop reading and start the oven. Put it on 375.

Cauliflower is from the same vegetable group as brussel sprouts, so if you hate them you probably have something against it, too. I say give it a chance. When cauliflower is roasted it looses much of its cabbage-y aroma. Plus, at three bucks a head it's not a risky investment. If you don't like it you can make delicious compost.

Fresh tarragon is a fragile, thin-leafed herb. Its flavor is slightly minty, with a hint of anise. When you have a huge amount of the bunch left over from this recipe, you can use with other roasted vegetables, green, salads, with fish or chicken.

~ Roasted Cauliflower & Tarragon ~

RECIPE

Cut a whole head of cauliflower into florets. Turn the head upside down and chop off any green leaf stems. Then hold the stem in your hand while inserting the knife inside to sever the florets at the stem. Try to keep most of them the same size — on the larger side.

Put them in a big heavy skillet and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper. The skillet should be big enough to hold all the florets without them stacking on top of each other. Roast with the lid off in the 375 degree oven for about thirty minutes. Turn with tongs every ten minutes or so. They'll char and get soft. Take a bite to test the texture. If they're too hard for your preference, leave them in longer.

When they're done to your taste take them out of the oven. Pour on some good olive oil (don't skimp). Shake them about. Sprinkle them liberally with Marash Pepper. Take a few stems of tarragon, strip the leaves and scatter them across the cauliflower. Eat while warm.