Eating up the miles

The food industry has been ordered to cut the distance our food travels from grower to shop. Our correspondent discovers how those food miles mount up

We will travel a long way for lunch these days. We think nothing of driving for a couple of hours to break bread with friends or to visit a special restaurant. In the age of Eurostar it is no longer considered fabulous decadence to nip off to Paris for a celebratory meal. But such journeys are as nothing when compared with the distance our lunch travels for us.

When I shop at the supermarket, particularly at this time of the year when home-grown fresh produce is limited, the sight of food sitting on the shelves after travelling halfway round the world gives me pause. I think of the great big gas-guzzling, ozone-wrecking jumbos that have transported much of it here. Then, to make myself feel better, I quickly imagine a South American peasant farmer who is earning a livelihood because of our year-round taste for foods that were once considered exotic.

The debate is settled by a voice screaming: