"One fourth of the grapes eaten in the United States are grown 11,000 km
away, in Chile, and the typical mouthful of American food travels 2,000
km from farm field to dinner plate."
This from an article by Alan Durning titled "Asking how much is enough",
pp. 159 in Lester R. Brown et al's *State of the World 1991*. NY:WW
Norton and Co. 1991.
Lots of similar types of numbers in this article used to compare
developed and developing countries use of resources, etc, as well as
energy consumption in processed food , ie it takes ten times the energy
to get canned corn to the consumer than to provide fresh corn in season.
If you need to know that Americans throw out enough aluminum cans to make
six thousand DC-10 airplanes annually, then this article is for you.
Hope it helps---mrhodes