Theme: Today’s food travels thousands of miles before it reaches its customers. Why does this happen? Is this a positive or negative trend?
The provision of food is an essential area of modern community, which is given a focal attention in order to effectively and harmlessly, for both environment as well as human; distribute food not only within the local scope but also in global terms. However, before arriving at the global markets, foodstuff travels long distances, that includes the mileage covered to the ultimate point in the form of consumers. The causes underlying behind this tread appear to be focused on areas, although it seems to be a negative tendency due to a number of reasons.
Perhaps the major factor of the long passage to the market is a seemingly endless chain of food distribution. This so-called chain ranges from the manufactures passing through the processors, to retailers, eventually completing the chain at the markets. As a result, such long term process, though constantly evolving with the help of advanced modern technology, still appear to be time-consuming as well as covering considerable distances. Another cause is the chemical involved procedures the foodstuff is subjected during the processing and manufacturing continuous practices. This implies that owing to the increased demand in food of instant cooking, which peaked tremendously in the last few decades, appear to greatly contribute to the encouragement of exploiting chemical processes that take a significant amount of time.
In addition to this, chemical involved procedures require specific equipment and certain location for carrying out the mentioned processes, consequently, forcing the foodstuff to move from its produced point to the location of processing. Finally, it is recognized that multiple countries tend not to have certain foodstuff, which is not prevalent in their territory due to the climate feature and characteristic of the terrain therefore, such states aspire to export a number of specific food products from another countries. Such widely observed pattern also highly promotes the travelling long distances of foodstuff.
Nevertheless, it appears that such tendency in food distribution tend to be negative with regards to the potential impact on people’s health. Given that the transportation over long distances requires the food product to not deteriorate and to remain fresh for long periods, manufactures appear to add various chemical compounds in order to maintain the stable conditions of foodstuff, thereby, eliminating all useful organic materials from food, which would adversely affect individuals’ health. Furthermore, since transportation oblige a number of taxes and shipping costs, it may greatly raise the prices directly in the markets.
In conclusion, the factors of chain of food distribution, chemical processes, requiring certain locations and equipment as well as food exportation to another country appear to be the main causes of food travelling long distance. However, this seems to be a negative pattern, as there is an adverse influence it can bring to public’s health and the market prices.