Would You Move to Where Your Favorite Food Is?

Let’s pretend that to transport fruits and vegetables long distances, like from South America to the Midwest, or from California to Ohio, became so cost prohibitive due to rising oil prices that it was unreasonable to buy these foods where you live. To avoid paying outrageous prices for food (think $20 for a carton of strawberries in January), you would have to limit your purchases to what was grown or harvested within, say, 250 miles of where you live.

Where would you move to in order to be closer to the foods you love?

Denver, Colorado—where I live—wouldn’t be all that bad. There would be corn, wheat, most vegetables in the summer and early fall. I could wait until late July or August and enjoy peaches, plums, nectarines from Palisades, Colorado, and later maybe grapes. Berries would be abundant in June, August and September since we can grow mountain strawberries, raspberries and blackberries here. No blueberries, though.

There would be cattle, goats, chickens and pigs, and dairy products. There would be some trout and other lake fish, and if we were to rely on hunting only we could eat prairie dogs and deer or elk.

I would have to give up tea, coffee, chocolate, tropical fruits, ocean fish, cherries, oranges, coconut, olive oil, chamomile, some spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, vanilla, cane sugar and pineapples.

I would have a hard time giving up tea, coffee, and chocolate. Cane sugar would be replaced by honey or sugarbeet sweetners. I don’t like tropical fruits that much so that wouldn’t be a big loss.

My answer would be that I would probably be OK staying where I am.

How about you?