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Mileage commitment

Posted at 9:48 AM on January 16, 2008 by Sareen Dunleavy Keenan

I love numbers. Fun for me can be figuring out how much money it costs to sit in traffic, or how much money is in the room at each of our staff meetings. I think it is important to know what things cost and how much goes into all of the actions that people make. That being said, I often don’t inflict my numerical fascination on others and bore them with those aspects that tickle my fancy.

Numbers have been crunched and consensus has been reached (I signed up for all of this before consulting the entire family). This numerical mileage commitment did not come easy. I would have had a much easier time if seasons (as previously mentioned) did not limit our choices so dramatically. The closest strawberry to me is 2000 miles away seven months of the year. OK, that is probably an exaggeration, and I have not explored every strawberry farm between me and the folks in California, but it does bring to light my challenges.

We also have a non-produce limitation. We purchased ½ of a cow for our family. This is a wonderful, organic, grass fed beast that is in our freezer, like it or not. It came from good friends of ours and traveled 460 miles. Before you second guess if it is worth it to support friends, and to have our cow travel even that far, get this. Our cow carpooled from Illinois to Minnesota. She traveled with a student on her way to college at the U of MN. Now that is saving some food miles!

Another piece of the puzzle is feeding ‘baby.’ She is a solid food eater now and needs variety in her diet. While the strawberry example doesn’t apply to her, a banana might. She is developing her palate and needs variety in her diet. We are already risking an orange baby by pushing the Minnesota carrot and squash options. Nutritional and cosmetic needs demands that ‘baby’ get an exception and can eat from wherever she wants within the US.

In our dinner table negotiations, we tried to finagle the miles a bit, redistricting style. We looked at using the same square mileage, but stretching some of them towards areas that are producing foods we wanted. For example, little of our food comes from Canada. If we cut our northern miles out of the question, we could stretch a little further, perhaps reaching Colorado? That seemed endlessly complicated, and hardly worth the point.

We are paying attention to what we eat, we are committing to sourcing at least 80% of our food locally. And when it comes down to it, we are committing to the seemingly huge 500 mile radius. I feel guilty though, taking the maximum allowance. There is one caveat; I am going to try to redefine the mileage limit come spring. We will shoot then for the super fancy 50 mile radius because Minnesota summers bring such amazing produce, I see little issue with this commitment.

If you can help us cut our winter miles, let us know! We need produce while the snow is flying.