10 Reasons to Eat Local Food
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 01. 1.06
Life Begins at 30 - that's the name of a blog - has a list of 10 reasons to eat local food. It covers a wide range of benefits, from environmental to health & taste to economics. It is even possible to download a PDF version of the list in case you want to print it and put it up in a public place (at work? in a cafeteria?). You can also check out our other coverage of "food miles" and local food by following the links below. ::10 Reasons to Eat Local Food, ::Living On The 100 Miles Diet, ::Living On The 100 Miles Diet, Part 2, ::DEFRA Study About Impact of 'Food Miles', ::Today's Eco-Event: "Eat Local Challenge"
I'm curious about the life-cycle energy consumption of running a dishwasher vs. washing by hand. You mention 'wasting the water and energy' to run a dishwasher in the above post. Does anyone have any info or studies on the net energy/water use? If I have an energy star dishwasher that uses about 7 gallons of water to run a full load, and a low-flow faucet (1.5 gpm), do I run the facuet longer than 5 minutes (7.5 gallons) total when hand washing a full load? I don't know. If it turns out I do, than the energy it takes for the city to clean, distribute, collect, and clean the excess water used during handwashing has to be less than the energy it takes to run the dishwasher in order for it to be better to handwash. Intuitively, it seems like handwashing is better for the environment, but over the life-cycle, I am unsure. Does anyone know?
Well, according to Grist, if you don't rinse yr dishes beforehand and don't over or under load, your energystar dishwasher's more efficient than hand dishwashing...