Eating local food. Advantages and disadvantages

The shipping of a wide range of foods from other cities or countries may have an adverse impact on locally produced food in this modern world of aggressive competition. However, the latter, in my own eyes, obviously offers more merits than demerits. On the face of it, the consumption of local food might be said to have certain drawbacks. One of them is the lack of diversity or exotic taste. Without access to strange food from far away, people in Vietnam today, for instance, would feel fed up with a limited number of food choices or would never have a chance to try, and probably enjoy, the taste of a similar type of food which is actually imported from other countries, such as Kobe beef from Japan. However, compared with food transported from other regions, eating food produced locally is significantly more beneficial in economic, environmental, and educational terms. From an economic point of view, local food does not involve excessive transportation leading to higher and higher costs, especially with increasing fuel prices taken into account. This is also associated with less damaging effects on the environment related to the shipping of food products by plane from abroad. In terms of education, consuming local food helps nurture patriotism among young generations, orienting them towards preserving and developing the sense of using indigenous products. In today’s world of globalization, the effort to consume local food is thus playing an indispensable role in maintaining the identity of each and every local culture. In a word, the downside of eating locally produced food is outweighed by its upside. This is, in actual fact, true from economic, environmental, and educational viewpoints.