Recently former-footballer (ok, Soccer…) and TV-Chef Gordon Ramsey demanded that real chefs and their real restaurants be forced to sell only locally-produced foods. Citing both a need for artistry in cooking (What could be more artistic than relying on whatever you can grow in Ramsey’s native Scotland in January…), as well as environmental concerns.
If diners cared much for artistry (and at the high-end, I suppose they would), then they would refuse to pay the high-prices of eating out at a restaurant with anyone less than a culinary Michelangelo. Making that concern, ultimately irrelevant.
As for the environmental concerns, Ezra Klein has recently reported on a study that debunks that argument altogether.
…two Carnegie Mellon researchers recently broke down the carbon footprint of foods, and their findings were a bit surprising. 83 percent of emissions came from the growth and production of the food itself. Only 11 percent came from transportation, and even then, only 4 percent came from the transportation between grower and seller (which is the part that eating local helps cut).
Furthermore, an environmentalist blog points out the economic argument against Gordon Ramsey’s proposal:
On the other hand, laws requiring the practice would be expensive and unenforceable, and as an Oxfam spokesperson points out, possibly devastating to African famers who rely on food exports for their living.
Disallowing the importation of foods from around the world would garner almost no noticeable reduction in “carbon-footprint.” Furthermore, it could greatly damage the people who are selling that food into richer countries, vastly shrinking the market for their produce, and their profits with them. Not to mention, the freedom of consumers in those importing nations to choose to eat that produce. Why should we not have the choice of eating strawberries in December?
Perhaps it is all just too bourgeoisie for the ecostalinists among us.
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