While at home last week in Maine, I went strawberry picking with Sarah, my little sister, as I try to do every summer. Working my way down a row of strawberries at Maxwell's Farm in Cape Elizabeth, I was reminded of the renewed debate over whether local food really is better food for our climate.

A new study, for instance, suggests that reducing your meat intake does more to reduce your carbon footprint than eating locally. Others argue that economies of scale can make local food less, not more, efficient in some instances.

But standing in the strawberry field last week, with the sun hot on my back and my basket heavy with freshly picked fruit, I was reminded of that which remains so compelling about the local food movement. It's not simply about carbon emissions, but about educating our taste.

Before you jump, let me clarify that I'm not arguing that carbon emissions are unimportant. I agree that man-made carbon emissions are effecting the earth in dramatic, still unknown ways. That agriculture contributes significantly to these changes. And that more people should think more about what they eat as a means of solving the climate crisis.

But I also think that the debate over carbon emissions has yet to offer any clear guidelines for the public. Companies, on the one hand, translate their energy savings into catchy measurements like the number of trees saved, or the number of cars removed from the road. We're still trying to figure out how to measure carbon emissions reliably, and serious questions have been raised about offsetting.

And yet, there is rising public interest, and support, for environmental issues. Food is a popular part of this conversation. For those of who want to do something, standing in the field at Maxwell's, I was reminded of what the most locally sourced food -- the food you pick -- offers.

Fingers and toes stained red by the juice of berries you're about to eat. The smell of a field of strawberries. Not a basket. Not a pie. But a whole field sweet with the smell of strawberries. The sound of kids, and of bees. A tan.

When you're picking strawberries, there is a general rule: one for the bucket, one for the mouth. The food miles can be measured as roughly the length of your arm. And over that short distance, you can learn a great deal.

How powerful for those who have only seen fruit under the incandescent light of grocery stores? For those who have never tasted fresh fruit?

If we need to educate our tastes, just as Darra Goldstein, the editor of Gastronomica suggested in her winter 2008 letter from the editor, could there be any better was than to stain our legs with the juice of berries we intend to eat?

We can extend this to the local market. Buying food at a farmer's market is not simply about reducing the distance food has to travel, but reducing the distance between field and mouth. At best, it's reduced to a direct interaction with the grower. And, at the very least, it's reduced to a direct interaction with a stall of food.

And you never know. The food might even have some dirt on it.