Healthy Food Doesn’t Have to Be Locally Grown

This New York Times article about school lunches and nutrition correctly points out that processed foods are not the best menu choice for kids. Then it conflates “healthy” with “local”:

Ann Cooper has made a career out of hammering on the poor quality of public school food. The School Nutrition Association, with 55,000 members, represents the people who prepare it.

Imagine Ms. Cooper’s surprise when she was invited to the association’s upcoming conference to discuss the Lunch Box, a system she developed to help school districts wean themselves from packaged, heavily processed food and begin cooking mostly local food from scratch.

Locally grown produce is healthier than processed snacks, but it isn’t the only alternative to junk food. Relying exclusively on local food sources is unwise because it restricts your options to those foods that are in season and that can be grown in your climate. This is obvious when you consider the fact that no fruits or vegetables are harvested in most of the United States during the winter, when children are in school.