hankyoreh

Two years ago, in Japan’s Aomori Prefecture, three middle school students decided to conduct a somewhat strange investigation. They wanted to find out just how far the food used in their school cafeteria had traveled before reaching their table. The students asked the cafeteria the origins of every food material. If something was imported, they checked as to which countries it came from. If it was from the domestic market, they checked the direct distance from its origin to their school. They added up the total distance that their food had traveled: it was 124,400 km.

The students’ investigation, which received the top award for middle school presentations in 2004, was not the first of its kind, but it was based on the "food mileage" concept that British environmentalist Tim Lang conceived 10 years earlier. Food mileage, a broader measure of how far food material travels, can be obtained by multiplying the distance by the weight of the food. A higher index means that its transit is causing unnecessary energy consumption and adversely affecting the environment.

The food mileage concept might come as a solid means of objection to the proposed free trade deal between South Korea and the United States. ’Food mileage’ in South Korea is the highest in the world, except for Japan. Considering the most sensitive issue on the table is to remove the tariff barriers on the local agricultural sector, a free trade deal with Washington would further hike food mileage. Higher food mileage would come as a curse not just for an individual country. It would pose a serious threat to the world by causing unnecessary consumption of precious resources and aggravating global warming in the process. This means that we should deal with the agricultural issue as an exception in the ongoing free trade negotiations.

What does a "balanced diet" mean? Does it mean eating all kinds of foods whether we want to or not, not knowing where they come from? I do not think so. A balanced diet means to eat foods that come from your own country. European people should eat European foods. Asian people should eat Asian foods. As a Japanese health expert once said, humans have been acclimated to their respective environments for a long time.

We cannot say that Eskimos do not follow a balanced diet, just because they do not eat doenjang-guk, a South Korean soup. Food mileage is not confined to only energy and environment issues. I think of what Nobel Prize-winning playwright Dario Fo once said, when he voiced his opposition to the domination of multinational food suppliers. They are robbing us of our right to choose which food we eat, he said.

Now, we need to brace for what comes after a free trade deal with Washington, reflecting on the meaning of food mileage.