In the Washington Post's Checkup blog today, columnist Jennifer Huget asks which is more important: organic or local? She acknowledges that it's not always an either/or situation — many foods advertised as local are also organic, though it's certainly not the case that it's vice versa — and comes down pretty solidly on the "local" side.
Speaking of local, local local-blogger (parse that!) Rob Gardner faces a similar conundrum when it comes to "cheating" on his all-or-okay-mostly-local diet. He's okay with skate (a fish that would only be found in Lake Michigan if it suddenly rained skate from the sky, and some of them fell in the lake) and with calamari (ditto), but draws the line firmly at pre-boxed chicken stock his wife brings home from Costco:
Organic and free range she defended herself. I countered with the necks and backs we had in the freezer from various chicken dishes. She claimed we had no where close enough for what she needed for stock. We, being the happy couple we are, compromised, if I would go out and buy her a hen from the live chicken place, she would return the boxed stock to Costco.Rob's ambitious locavorism aside, it's this blog's humble opinion that if you can't go local (it's worth striving for, but it's not always doable), you could do worse than long-distance organic. As a commenter in the Post article notes, "A grass-fed cow raised in New Zealand has a smaller carbon footprint than most locally raised cows."
Local Food or Organic: Which is More Important? [WaPo/The Checkup]
I Cheat [The Local Beet]
[Photo via ilovebutter's Flickr]
