To be perfectly honest, local isn’t any better as far as pests. There’s never been a rat free grain or corn silo. Presumably you could get pretty close to clean if you refined the sugar out of beets, But they grow in the ground in the dirt with all the insects and pests…
Most of those things get baked out because of the high temperatures.
These ones after baking, not so much.
Cooking is good. I wash my vegetables. And my meat for that matter, although that’s strangely not recommended.
I prefer desease free wasp food over pigeon and rat shit in my cooked food.
I guess in the end I eat both. I try to buy locally whenever possible, but I guess sugar is hard to source locally.
To be perfectly honest, local isn’t any better as far as pests. There’s never been a rat free grain or corn silo. Presumably you could get pretty close to clean if you refined the sugar out of beets, But they grow in the ground in the dirt with all the insects and pests…