Do you see what is in my freezer? (Please disregard the residual frozen peas.) Front and Center. Yep, that is ICE CREAM. Do not be fooled by the Wright Dairy label. While the milk may be produced in Alabama, the sugar and vanilla was not. Sure, Joe bought the flavors Butter Pecan and Strawberry, and, possibly, the pecans or berries could have been grown in Alabama. Still, we know that the sugar and vanilla had to have been trucked here.So, how local is LOCAL? Have we failed in our moral endeavor somehow by choosing to eat some delicious, nutritious, and filling ice cream?
Immanuel Kant wrote of the “Categorical Imperative.” His ideas don’t drink as well as the vodka but he was an absolutist. If our “imperative” is to eat only local for 4 months, then how can we reconcile the consumption of this impure ice cream with our objective? I feel Kant’s ghost breathing down my neck.
The answer to this dilemma is that eating local is not the ultimate “imperative.” There are myriad reasons for our mission. So let’s evaluate this question.
Support local economies: Yes, Wright Dairy
Reduced emissions from trucking: No, the sugar, vanilla bean, xanthum gum, and guar gum were not produced here.
Local for Health: Yes, local milk / No, refined sugar
Organic vs. Local: No, beet and cane sugar production is heavily dependent on chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides. Yes, small scale dairy production is vastly superior to factory cows.
This is simplified and I could certainly argue about water quality, wars for oil, and corporate maleficence, but you get the idea. I guess we are hungry. Please weigh in on this moral dilemma.
5 comments:
Hmmm...interesting. Lets look at it from a percentage case. Maybe you should weigh how much more percentage local ingredients are involved in producing this ice cream. If, it is the majority, then i say yes. if not, well...i know rashmi's cats love milky treats =)
p.s. you can do smoothies with local fruits and milk instead. Ooooo, and sorbet if you are feeling fancy =)
That's very similar to what I was going to say. You do have some exceptions, like some spices - certainly vanilla qualifies - and if you look at the percentage of ingredients milk makes up the largest part of ice cream. Theoretically you might be able to make your own...but I don't know if honey will work. And you'd have to have rock salt, right? Ideally it would be better if you could produce your own with as many local ingredients as possible, but practically speaking I don't have a problem with it. I do think trying to eat more locally has changed my way of thinking about some foods - I regard sweets in particular as more of a luxury, given the sugar and frequently, chocolate involved. And that makes me a little slower to buy it, and appreciate that luxury a little more.
if ice cream = sanity. then eat the ice cream. especially if joe gets to drink beer.
or you could just make your own ice cream in mass quantities w/ local ingredients (assuming such a thing can be done) + store it in the gi-normous meat freezer your partners in crime apparantly have.
I say eat the ice cream. Wright's Dairy Farm is a local company and is creating a positive impact on the economic community. If some of the ingrediants are trucked in, I think it's okay!
Here's how I would logically settle this:
Today- Milk is local
1900- Milk was local
Today- Sugar, vanilla: not local; Ice is local
1900- Sugar and vanilla and ice were not local
At least you can make your own ice rather than it being carved from a lake and brought in by train..
By making our own ice, at least, we have more local ingredients than prenidustrial times. Plus, you don't really need anything but eggs, milk/ cream, vanilla and sugar to make ice cream...
Eat it!
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