Health economist Jane Sarasohn-Kahn has an interesting take in a new article on her Health Populi blog about “km zero”, a food movement she describes as “the future of food.” Basically, it takes locavore standards to the max, seeking to source food as close to you as possible, for the freshest and the best ingredients, including home grown food and CSAs.
I’m super prejudiced here, as Jane has been my friend for well over 40 years (we performed James Thurber’s “The Macbeth Murder Mystery” together in high school), but sourcing fresh food and local food and good food are all on the same scale to better nutrition as well as better taste. Of course, it works better in somewhere like Florence, which she writes about, or California, than it might in areas where most agriculture is large-scale monoculture, but it’s possible to put in an herb garden or a kitchen garden almost anywhere.
My favorite local agriculture is actually done at an Italian restaurant near us, Perche No, where the herbs and the tomatoes are grown on the roof. Since it’s walking distance from home, there’s not much of a carbon footprint in going there. The food is beyond spectacular, too. As, apparently, is the food at Tastevere Kmzero, a Rome restaurant that prides itself on using local ingredients and is a takeoff on its neighborhood, Trastavere. Of course, it might take a bit more carbon to get there.