Do you care about air miles when shopping?

you scare me, delia. freaky.

I tihnk its important to shop around the seasons where possible, but there are some things which just HAVE to be imported. Good olive oil, parmesan cheese, parma ham are three which immediately spring to mind. Thats why I've voted "Sometimes".

XX

I'm with James as i do try to shop "locally" but somethings have to be imported eg where can we grow pineapples/bananas in the UK ?

I do think Supermarkets could help local farmers and producers. It seems a shame to sell imported vegetables when there are so many good local producers. nice to see the "British" tag on more good these days.

I too like to shop locally and seasonally but to be really honest it is more to do with seasonal obviously being better and fresher and I shop locally to support local traders and farmers etc. I very rarely even think about air miles as Jamesey has said, there are so many things we buy now that are fron abroad because we cook international food, and eat things which cannot be produced here.

I have voted sometimes too, as Jamesey says, there are some things you have to buy that come from abroad. I try to buy local fresh produce at the farmers market, and do look for home grown stuff in the supermarkets.

Of course I care about air miles when shopping - when there's a choice. I won't buy strawberries from Spain if I can buy them from Kent or Scotland. I choose lamb from Wales or Yorkshire rather than from New Zealand. But clearly I can't buy UK grown bananas, kiwis etc and I don't care for the English wines that I've tasted. So I voted, yes, I care, but that doesn't mean everything I buy has to be British.

I voted "Yes" but as mentioned above, I have to buy bananas, pineapples etc. which are produced abroad but I don't buy beans from kenya or other veggies produced in Israel etc. I buy my meat from a local butcher who mainly stocks locally produced.

YES, I do care about air miles when shopping but that's not to say I would never buy anything exotic or even green beans from Kenya, should I feel the need. Talking retrospectively here as France still has a tendancy to stock seasonal produce and own colony produce. I know there are exceptions.
The other side of the coin is the employment benefits to farmers in Kenya and such countries that grow crops for the UK market. If we were all to stop buying high air mile produce, there will be less money for those farmers, and I'm not sure they are paid properly in the first instance.......
Biggs jumping down from soapbox now and off to enjoy a piece of lamb from 1 kilometre away and yes, I know the lamb did have to travel a short distance to the abbotoir but its life was in beautiful surroundings and it could roam at will.

I can only echo what's already been said - I do try to buy local but some items have to be imported.

Mind you, we may be being too hard on ourselves because the question is about AIR miles. Bananas and pineapples have been imported since before there was air travel and I assumed they would still be coming here by boat. Air transport is only for things with a very short shelf-life - vegetables, soft fruits and flowers. Olive oil, parmesan and parma ham have also been mentioned, I'd imagine they are transported overland since they all have a shelf-life of many months.

But, living in Warwickshire with so many orchards within 20 miles, I do wonder why the shops and supermarkets around me stock only apples from the USA and New Zealand, I don't care if they did come by boat, it's just not sensible to transport goods over such long distances that are also produced locally.

I am inclined to agree with all the above. However, if there were a war where the exotic things couldn't be flown in to the UK, we would manage just as they seemed to do during WWII. It is possible for us to be self sufficient. I guess we would just find substitutes. But we have joined the EU and it seems that we are no longer choosing purely British foods. We want international foods, not just European. I do try to buy foods from the UK where possible, particularly vegetables. But this weekend I had mangos and passion fruits along with the strawberries and raspberries. I could have managed without the mangos and passion fruits I guess, but they were very good indeed and my roulade wouldn't have been nearly as good without them!!! Sometimes it's hard to carry out your good intentions.

From my (NZ) perspective, all the brouhaha about airmiles is perceived as a con served up from some vested interests to hide what is essentially the promotion of trade protectionism in the UK/ Europe. Vested interests such as the supermarkets, farmers, politicians and some in the anxious 'hand wringing' classes. Disappointing. Given the dire global economy, the UK can't expect to sell its own products to the world and not reciprocate. If there is to be such a debate on sustainability, the real iargument should be about how much CO2 is created in the production and transportation of such produce from producer to your local retailer, not just the spurious notion of 'airmiles' per se. I think you'll find that NZ compares exceedingly well on the CO2 emission score despite the vast distance. You won't find NZ produce being grown 'under cover' for a large part of the year and trucked long distances from, say, Alicante / Murcia / across UK. A method which in itself is a mass emitter of CO2. Dear readers: please don't be too offended but frankly the UK just wouldn't be worth living in if you didn't have access to a wide variety of clean, imported foodstuffs and wine from around the globe. You can't just live on fish fingers and dodgy kebabs made from 'mechanically recovered' (???) meat. So good on you Delia Smith for spotting quality when you see it - and not being suckered in on the airmiles debate. A previous comment mentioned about how the UK coped during WW2. It didn't actually. It appears that some people forget that meat, dairy products, canned foodstuffs, flour etc were shipped from NZ, Australia, South Africa, Canada , Argentina, US etc to the UK to feed the populace. With great loss of life of the merchant seamen involved. NZ had food rationing until well into the 1950s as a lot of food and materials were requisitioned and sent to Europe to assist the population rebuild. Why? I ask myself that question as it appear some people in the UK/ Europe have, insultingly, poor memories as to who their friends in this world really are. You never know, the UK/ Europe might just need us again so I'd have thought it prudent not to alienate the very people who (still) have a great afinity for your country. Now come to your senses people. Fetch yourself a Lindauer for an aperitif and then tuck yourselves into that succulent (NZ) herb crusted cutlet and wash it down with a superb Otago Pinot Noir. To finish, I suggest a mini pavlova with either sliced kiwifruit or passionfruit....washed down with a delightful late harvest muscat. Can't do that from homegrown produce in Slough or Milton Keynes can you.

Speaking as a New Zealander I get a great laugh out of reading the crap regarding carbon footprints and airmiles etc. Anthony has said it all. It is a fact that the more efficient farming methods we use downunder compared to the archaic methods used in UK and Europe are an embarrassment to your so called farming industries in the EEC. Some smartass polly has come up with this nonsense to shaft NZ and Australia and attempt to promote protectionism again and you dumbos have fallen for it. It is only intended to get your farming vote onside and will cost the normal European consumer big time in taxes to protect an inefficient industry. Fortunately it works both ways and many of us in the bottom half make a point of not buying european trash. Lets face it you poms and your continental mates still cannot build a reliable vehicle that does not leak oil on the garage floor from new, break down on a regular basis, cost a fortune to repair and we won't even go there as far as Airbus is concerned. I think now I will have a nice feed of lovely New Zealand lamb washed down with a glass or two of that same Pinot Noir that Anthony was quaffing and lie back and NOT think of England.

Re. the new zealand lamb thing: were you making a statement about free range meat versus meat that is grown via factory farming? If so then I have to agree with you. Meat/eggs/dairy that comes from animals that have lived happy, natural lives on grassland pastures DO produce better quality meat than animals who are factory farmed. Not to mention that buying free range is the right thing to do. Humans need to make ethical choices when it comes to food. We shoulden't measure things simply in 'flyer miles' but by other ethical measures, like how happy a life the animal lived before it died.

How short sighted can folk get? As temperatures and sea levels rise much of our earth's most fertile land will be washed away or turn to desert. This is the time to make wide choices.

Most New Zealand produce is shipped to Britain not flown which makes air miles irrelevant.

A university study showed when taking everything from pasture to plate into account, NZ meat had a smaller carbon footprint than British.

Distance travelled is just one part of the environmental impact of a product and longer isn't necessarily worse than shorter - is it better for 100 trucks to travel 10 miles or 1 truck to go 1000 miles?

i voted yes as its is important to me- don't get me wrong i'm no saint- i love to travel- but i like to know my food is fresh and locally grown or raised. i do keep my own pigs and poultry and grow lots of fruit and veg so i can guarantee that everthing has had a nice life and no chemicals. where i am (portugal) everything is clearly marked where its sourced from and i always choose Portuguese when i can- in fact its much harder for me not to buy Portuguese as you just can't find it often. also for me its a cost thing- i just can't afford to buy mangos from the other side of the world very often but when i can get some fresh local cherries or nectarines at a fraction of the price then thats what i'd go for. interesting debate by the way

I think there needs to be some thought and logic applied to this subject. E.g. the ethanol produced in America has a huge Carbon footprint, when you look at the imported diesel used to produce the raw material, the diesel to transport it to refineries, the coal to produce the power, etc etc. Again, euro foods have large carbon footprints compared with Southern hemisphere foods. Most Euro food is intensively farmed. Southern hemisphere foods incur the carbon footprint that comes from the requirement to deliver them to market. Ships are much more efficient at converting oil to energy than trucks are by the way. Green is as Green can be, I am sure some learned PhD will crunch the numbers and do some homework, the truth is out there, and not as tasteful as Northern Hemisphere producers might like you to think. For me there is nothing nicer than a cold NZ wild venison salad, washed down with Central Otago Pinot Noir. and if it cannot be delivered to you, then row yer boat on over, what are ya waiting for.