NICE, France, April 20 (UPI) -- In the Place Saint-François market in Nice, stalls are mounded high with fish at their peak of freshness. Walk down to the Quai des Etats-Unis -- the United States Quay -- and you can see the fishing boats out to sea.
But check the displays in the few produce shops in the streets that lead to the daily market, fighting to exist in between stores selling mass-produced Provençal pottery and beaded bracelets. Among the potatoes and greenhouse-grown lettuces lie unseasonal fruits and vegetables, from strawberries to cherries and zucchinis with their flowers attached, ready for stuffing à la Niçoise.
Unlike the fish, at this time of year these don't come from local sources. Nor do the oranges, a fruit now so common we don't bother to contemplate where they might have been grown.
The French are being urged to start doing so now. Like the Americans, they want their fresh green beans in December, their shrimp year round.
But figures released this week by the French division of the World Wildlife Fund show the difference in CO2 emissions among produce delivered to Paris from a variety of sources.
One kilogram (2.2 pounds) of green beans from Provence in France costs 64 grams in CO2 emissions. Sourced in Andalucia, Spain, the figure rises to 128 grams. Flown in 6,000 kilometers (3,728 miles) from Kenya, emissions rocket to 3,948 grams per kilo of green beans.
Cherries driven from the Loire district in central France cost 67 grams, from Catalonia in Spain 134 grams, and flown from Chili, 1,052 grams.
If figures like these referred to a rise in cases of cancer due to causes under our control, we would take immediate action.
A specialist in climate at the World Wildlife Fund, Jean-Stephane Devisse, claims in the last 30 years the number of trucks and the distance they travel across Europe has quadrupled.
According to the French civil aviation authority (DGAC), aerial freight is expected in the future to rise faster than passenger carriage. Says Elisabeth Laville, founder of consultant firm Utopie, "Transportation has become one of the most critical influences on the environment with regard to food consumption."
Not all transport. Bring 1 ton of food 1 kilometer by boat and the cost is only 15 to 30 grams in CO2 emissions. In a truck, they rise to between 200 and 450 grams.
To deliver 1 kilo of fish to Paris by truck from France's northern sea coast of Brittany costs 80 grams in CO2 emissions, by boat from Morocco costs 320 grams, by boat and truck from Senegal, 83 grams, of which the boat accounts for only 3 grams.
In the last 30 years, according to Devisse, the amount of food consumed per head in Europe has remained stable at around 70 kilograms (154 pounds) per inhabitant per year. It's the type of food and the distances it has traveled that has altered.
Do we have to wait until energy costs rise enough to have an impact on raising the price of what we eat before we change our food-buying habits? Buy locally and in season, and your taste buds will benefit from produce that hasn't been picked before it's ripe, in order to survive its lengthy journey to your plate.
Young spinach picked locally is coming onto supermarket shelves now. Toss it in a salad bowl with some walnut halves lightly toasted in a dry pan. Add some thin slivers of locally grown apples, dress with a mustardy vinaigrette and crumble over some blue cheese. Eat on its own, or with a roasted chicken. Poultry is not, unlike beef cattle, a massive and environmentally damaging consumer of cereal feed. And it's so much better for you.
