Have You Had Your 3,000 Mile Banana Today?

Just as nuts (cashews, peanuts, almonds) are among my favorite "foods," bananas are one of my favorite fruits. While in Wyoming this past week, my brother-in-law's girl friend brought home some organic bananas from the market, and I greedily mowed one down as it felt like we hadn't had fruit in a few days. The sticker on the bananas noted that they were a "Product of Peru," as in the country in South America. While I recognize that hardly anything is growing in Wyoming, bananas of all fruits are almost always grown outside of the US, and therefore represent quite large number of food miles when considering where it is the food on your table is from.

Fear not, though, as according the the Dole Organic Blog apparently Dole has set about introducing a program to "offset by mitigation practices which increase the capture of CO2 in order to achieve a 'neutral' balance," thereby setting back the food odometer and achieving a zero balance. Dole's practices will entail "new, more efficient transportation methods, changes to agricultural processes to reduce CO2 emissions, and partnering with local farmers to implement preservation and reforestation programs."

If you are really curious as to where your Dole fruit (especially in my case, bananas) comes from, the Dole Organic website has a function which will allow consumers to “travel to the origin of each organic product” Dole produces. By entering the three digits Farm Code located in the sticker of their fruit you can visit the country, the farm, view photos and learn more about our products and our people.

While not within the confines of a desirable 100 Mile Diet, it does make savoring the banana-licious flavor a little easier knowing that some effort is being made to account for the food mileage...

Breathe in, breathe out… YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!