I was lucky to have cooking handed down to me by my parents - not from any teaching but by osmosis because of the way we lived. It was a 'simple food' life that gave me the knowledge of how cheaply you can live if you know how to garden and cook. This is particularly true in the case of so called lesser cuts of meat, so often the best of flavor when cooked long and slow.

The luck of coming to live in the Barossa began a wonderful journey; this is where I really learnt about seasonality, simply because I lived it, and it has framed my whole philosophy on food. The flavor of fruit and vegetables picked ripe and at their best, and how to maximize the potential of, not only what can be grown here, but what is available in the wild too.

So of course food miles is something I think carefully about and I believe a good percentage of the public are aware of lessening our reliance on food from outside our immediate backyard as part of our environmental management.

However for me, it has to be tempered with common sense. I am concerned by the vocal minority who say that it is the only way to live. Yet will they give up their coffee and chocolate, their spices and other ingredients that have become so much a part of their life?

What I would like to be thought about is how important it is to know where food comes from, whether it's apples and oranges at the supermarkets, or at our local farmers' market. The bulk of the public, probably in particular city dwellers, have lost touch with seasonality. That can be redressed with retailers - big and small - providing customers with more knowledge. That is, to declare whether the oranges are from the Riverland (where a whole community badly needs supporting) or whether they have been flown in from California in the off season. This information at least allows the consumer to make an informed decision.

As I've already declared, there are some foods I for one would find it difficult to live without. There is the consideration that we are set so far apart from the rest of the world's food growing regions that our mere geographical placement has an unavoidable affect on food miles. But for me, it's the minority of food choices given the rich food life available to me in the Barossa - and should I say wine life too! If consumers can be encouraged to weigh up their food options, and make informed decisions, to buy only those foods that are impossible to source locally, there's already a significant reduction in food miles.

We are a huge country of many microclimates. Agriculture, horticulture, viticulture and aquaculture all form part of our country's food life. In the main we have learnt to work with our individual climates, so each State or Territory has different parts of our food puzzle that grow best in particular climates. This makes up the whole of the Australian food scene and whilst the ultimate is to source food from as close to your own backyard as possible, in its natural season and with its the ultimate flavor (and one that I choose to do) what sort of an economy would we be left with if food miles became an all embracing criteria?

We are a country that needs to export. The grain we grow in our wheat belts supply the parts of Australia where they cannot themselves produce this. Whole rural communities exist because of specialties of the climates of their region. Our wine industry is in pockets all over Australia but relies on export internationally as a vital part of its existence, as other agricultural industries do.

Of course we should consider food miles, but let's not abandon common sense. I really believe that knowledge about seasonality would lead to the consumer not wanting to buy the orange from California if it were so declared, and not only because of food miles.

Written by Maggie Beer for Do Something's FoodWise campaign.

For Maggie's practical FoodWise tips click here

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