As you know, we're talking about food and agriculture for our next
couple of sessions. Here are some questions to ponder (and respond
to on your blogs) as we look to our next class:
1. Do you have the environment in mind when you make food choices?
What, exactly, do you think about?
2. You made a list in class today of the foods that you've eaten over
the last two days. Of those food items, which, in your estimation, has
had the greatest environmental impact? Why?
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3 comments:
1) I would consider myself environmentally conscious when I eat. (However, going to the dining hall every day isn’t exactly environmentally friendly when you think about it). Buying local is obviously the best and most environmentally friendly to eat; however, the dining hall is generally where I eat most of my meals. While I don’t think about it all the time, net energy change is something that I think about when I am walking around the dining hall. The amount of energy that went into the red meat (which I don’t eat) is drastically higher than the amount of energy that went into the items on the salad bar. Being a rower, however, and one who has to be below certain weight at every race, choosing to buy local is not always an option for what I need and when. I do try to make do with what is given though and opt for the items that required less energy to get to my plate.
2) The items that had the greatest impact would probably the coffee or the chicken. The coffee was not grown in the United States, thus it had to be sent here from somewhere. It then had to be distributed out to the various locations from its distribution center, ground, brewed then finally consumed. The chicken was from the dining hall, meaning it probably came from god knows where (which is actually kind of scary to think about now as I eat it almost every day). It had to be slaughtered, cleaned, packaged, frozen then shipped, then trucked then finally cooked to get to my mouth. In terms of net energy usage, these two items both had very large impacts. The ratio of energy that was used to the ratio of energy gained, was quite large.
1. I'd like to say yes I do have the environment in mind when I make my food choices- 'environmentally conscious' as austin said. I try to make conscientious decisions all the time, aside from food choices, thinking about the origins of things i buy, how much of it i actually need and how to be a wise shopper by buying in bulk and buying as locally produced and environmentally friendly products on my list as i can.
My food usually weighs more for cereals and grains, vegetables and fruits than for meat proteins and sweets. I get my protein from fish or nuts, and in a sense depend on daily multiple vitamins to kinda blend it all together. I try to eat only when im hungry and save my food to make it last as I get sick to my stomach sometimes thinking about the litany of crises now occurring around the world and the many many more in the coming future. yegch.
2. The distance produce and food products must travel before served on a plate for "the next phase" provides the largest impact on the environment food can make. Burning fossil fuels adds 21 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year, so buying food from another country that requires a lot of use of fossil fuels is something I try to think about with all my purchases, but especially with food. I drink beer brewed in Virginia, Delaware, or Maryland while in DC, and the same goes for try to eat locally wherever I end up.
Since Wednesday morning I have eaten foods or had beverages from South America (coffee purchased via fair trade), California (produce from safeway), the plains states (cereals, grains), with an equal half of food grown within 150 miles of AU- Bon Appetit is the manager of the food at our school, they say we eat completely local produce- check it out https://my.american.edu/external.cfm?linkID=101 .
SORRY Back to the POINT-
Of the foods I eat,that which likely produces the greatest environmental impact is likely my daily coffee from south america as it must travel so many miles.
1. To be perfectly honest, when I’m shopping at the grocery store or going to TDR or anything of that nature, the last thing I am thinking about is the environment. In fact, I probably don’t even think about the environment whatsoever in this regard. As I’m strolling around the isles looking for some chicken, rice, bread, or basically anything that I might need to make myself breakfast/lunch/snacks/dinners/etc. all I’m worried about is “Hmmm, will it be enough for however many people I’m cooking for and can I make it taste good?” Things such as worrying about how much energy is needed to wash the food, power the oven, and prepare everything, let alone how much energy was needed to transport the materials to the local establishment where I picked it all up, is not something that I would consider “important” (Sorry Guys). If I was to buy in bulk it would be because it saved me money in the long run and saved me from making another trip to the supermarket for a little while longer. Am I insensitive towards the fact that I could care less about the environment when thinking about food? No, that’s not necessarily the case. What it balls down to is that quite frankly, when I’m looking for something to eat I’m not thinking about the guy digging up coal to power the Energy Plant used to provide electricity to operate the oven or the gas used to power the delivery trucks to get from Point A to Point B. It doesn’t automatically pop into mind when my stomach is growling and looking for something to satisfy it.
2. Of the foods that I’ve had since Wednesday, I would probably have to say that the chicken or the homemade chili (Yes, I do Cook and quite often) had the greatest environmental impact. With regards to the chicken…I love chicken. I love all sorts of meat in general (Beef, Pork, Chicken, etc.) I’m Puerto Rican…it’s a way of life. When I visit family on the island I can easily say that 99% of the time not an entirely huge amount of impact is made on the environment as since there are many farms in my family…I can ensure that the only one exerting some sort of energy is me as I’m preparing my own chicken that I picked out myself. Back home in the States, however, the story is a bit different. I can’t go to a farm, pick my own chicken, and just enjoy a few hours preparing and enjoying my own feast. It has to be slaughtered somewhere else, shipped, prepared, and cooked for me. Between the oil, electricity, pollutants, and countless other by-products from the shipment of these chickens, needless to say it’s quite a lot. With the homemade chili, it’s not so much that the products come from halfway across the world but rather I use a lot of different products. To get all of them, and then using the subsequent energy in the kitchen to make sure it’s just right, well, let’s just say that I can understand how my Global Environmental Footprint told me that we’d need 7 Earths for everyone to live like I do.
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