Food Miles
Flying to countries for holidays abroad and using our cars to go shopping all produce greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide but this travel is not the only miles we must think about reducing. The food we buy has travelled too.
Food Miles is the distance your food has travelled from where it is grown to your plate. Not all the food we buy from the supermarket could be grown or made in Scotland. For example bananas grow abroad in continents such as South America, South – East Asia, Africa and the Caribbean
On the map the continents that grow bananas are marked. Scotland is marked too. Look how far the bananas have to travel to get to Scotland. When we visit the supermarket we have a wide choice of food available to us as we can transport food from all over the world using planes, trains, ships and lorries.
Activity
Using products that you find in the supermarket have a look to see how far the food has travelled - worksheet.
Some examples have been completed by pupils at Muirfield Primary School. Each product has been marked on the map to show where it has come from.