Sustainable foodies love to throw around the statistic that the “average meal travels 1500 miles from farm to table.” I know I’m guilty of quoting this stat in talks and articles - and so are countless other bloggers, food writers, local food chefs, and policy makers.  In fact, if you Google the phrase “1500 miles,” the first website that pops up is “localharvest.org“  It’s such a nice, round number that succinctly expresses the notion that our eating habits are divorced from where we live.  How could we resist?

Well, according to Jane Black at Slate, we should think twice before sharing the 1500 number so confidently.

Black writes that the 1500 miles stat was first published in 2001.  Researchers at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture compared three different food distribution systems - local, regional, and national - for their eco-friendliness, and came up with 1,518 miles.  The number they produced helped to pair the notion of “food miles” with a concrete image that consumers could visualize.  But there are several serious problems associated with it.  As Black puts it, “It’s only partly true.  And only if you live in Chicago.”

The numbers were indeed calculated to reflect the plate of someone living in the Windy City.  But assuming that the majority of our domestic produce comes from California, and that Cali’s fertile farm land is 2,799 miles from the Eastern seaboard, the numbers just don’t hold up for the average plate in Boston, New York, Vermont, Atlanta, etc.

Secondly, 1500 miles only refers to “produce arriving in Chicago from within the United States.“  That means it excludes any food that is not a fruit, vegetable, or grain (e.g. milk and meat), and also excludes produce grown outside of the US.  So the lemon from Chile pictured above, and one that many of us regularly stock our kitchens with, doesn’t even make it to the final tally.  And of course, like any statistic, it is based on a series of assumptions that cloud the final number - like that all the food we eat is grown from and headed towards the center of a state.

Knowing that the stat is faulty leaves us in a bit of an ethical conundrum (and what an appropriate time to be thinking about ethical conundrums as we chug towards Yom Kippur!).  The ultimate goal, of course, is to lower the number significantly.  But in the meantime - how do we effectively inform people about food miles?  Do we abandon the stat, which has served us so well?  Continue to use it as an effective education tool, while embracing its inherent faults?  Use it, but with a long string of qualifiers?  Try to come up with something more accurate?

I don’t really have a complete answer to this question (and neither does Black).  But I know personally, that unless I am speaking to my parents in Chicago about their domestic produce consumpton, I won’t feel comfortable dropping the 1500 miles bomb in sustainable foodie conversation anymore.  It hurts a little to say goodbye to a favorite stat - and not because it is no longer true, but because it was never quite true to begin with.

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* The title of this post is a play on song lyrics that were written in 1905 by a man named Thomas S. Allen.

I’ve got a mule, her name is Sal,
15 miles on the Erie Canal
She’s a good old worker and a good old pal,
15 miles on the Erie Canal

We’ve hauled some barges in our day
filled with lumber, coal and hay
And we know every inch of the way from
Albany to Buffalo…

Allen wrote these words in nostalgic tribute to the mule-powered barge trips that goods made up and down the Erie canal during the mid-to-late 1800s.  By the early 1900s, much faster engines had replaced the mules.  Despite the progress and convenience these faster trips brought, the change left Allen wistful for the days when traffic went at the speed of 15 miles per day!