As you know, we'll be talking about food and agriculture during 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. What, exactly, do you think about when you make food choices? Do you have environmental considerations in mind? Or are there other considerations that determine what you eat?
2. Take a few moments to consider everything you've eaten in the last day or two. Of the food or beverage items you've consumed, which, in your estimation, has had the greatest environmental impact? Why? What goes in to such a calculation?
1)The past year has involved a lot of experimentation regarding my diet and food choices. I grew up in a household where my diet was changing all the time. My mother has been vegan for most of my life, and so my siblings and I have been subjected to changes from veganism, to eating meat, to being just vegetarian, back to being vegan, etc. Up until last year, I was vegetarian for almost 4 or 5 years. I never missed meat, but the hardest things for me was losing weight because the vegetarian diet (at least for a poor college student)was mostly carb-based. I wasn't happy with the way I looked and I knew that I needed to start eating mostly protein. So, now I am no longer vegetarian, but the meat I eat is only low fat chicken. Originally, when I was younger, my "choice" to be vegetarian or vegan was mostly forced on me. By the time I got to college though, and started studying more about the environment, I knew that my choice to be vegetarian was for environmental reasons. During my first few years of college, I was definitely extremely idealistic about fighting for environmentalism and for an anti-meat eating lifestyle.
ReplyDeleteHowever, environmental concerns are still a big part of the considerations I take when shopping for food, or anything for that matter. I hardly ever buy fruits and veggies unless they're organic. Mostly, this is for health reasons, because I don't think that any level of pesticide will ever be healthy to eat. Also, I buy organic for environmental reasons because pesticides sprayed on food bioaccumulates and gets into the water, then spreading through the natural environment.
Although I try to be really conscious when buying food, a lot of what determines what I buy is cost. Growing up, my parents used to shop only at Whole Foods or other organic markets. But since I live on a limited budget, and I live with someone who isn't as concerned about the environment, I shop a lot at Target or BJ's for food and other things that I need. Being able to get things at a lower cost is really important. Typically, I'll buy the basics and packaged foods from those larger stores, and then get my fruits and veggies from either Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. However, many times that means that I don't get the amount of vegetables that I should be because it can be really inconvenient. Also, since fruit goes bad so quickly, and we don't go shopping too often, I've taken to buying a lot of canned or frozen fruits, which are nearly never organic. Organic veggies are easy and cost effective to get frozen, especially at Whole Foods.
2)Of the foods I eat daily, or even a couple times a week, I think that chicken, coffee, peanut butter, bread, and chocolate have the greatest environmental impact. Coffee is famous for having a global environmental impact because usually the beans in one package are not single origin, meaning they come from several different countries around the world. Chicken, in general, has a high environmental impact because it is mostly grain fed, which uses a lot of land, and factory farms take up a lot of land as well as dispose a lot of waste. Typically, the chicken I buy doesn't come from TOO far away, but I know a lot of that is wishful thinking. I try to buy free range chicken most of the time, but with dubious labeling and high cost, it is difficult to know what you are really getting and to get meat that is cost effective. People don't often think about chocolate having a high environmental impact, but the truth is, we don't grow cacao in the United States, meaning we are most likely getting it from south america or somewhere else around the world. Those beans travel a long way, from the forest to the factory, to the store, to your home, it takes quite the journey and uses quite a bit of fossil fuels for its transport. I don't know too much about the specific origins of the wheat we consume in the U.S., but I DO know that most of the wheat we produce, we end up exporting, which means that we import a lot of the wheat used for our bread and other grain-based products.
ReplyDeleteWhen I make decisions in what I eat, I like to think that I eat only organic, locally grown products, but that is simply not true with my college lifestyle. Eating organics products in college has become too much of a hassle and a drain on my limited bank account to manage. At home, I grew up in an extremely healthy household. My parents were meat-eaters, but purchased local, fresh ingredients. The meat we did eat mostly consisted of fish because we lived on the coast and were able to obtain fresh products that were caught of the coast of where we lived. I had never been a large meat-lover, (sadly to say it was more because of my mother’s poor cooking than respect for animals or ecological concern). During my freshman year of college, I quickly realized that I naturally gravitated towards the vegetarian section of TDR, and hardly ever ate meat once I could make meal decisions for myself. I ate well, made sure I got plenty of protein through beans and chickpeas in my salads and tofu, and decided soon after to become a full-fledged vegetarian. That was about a year and a half ago, and I am still a vegetarian. I do not miss meat at all, in fact I am happier not eating meat, which makes it easier to stick to this new diet. Now that I am taking more environmentally-centered classes, I realize that what was once a personal choice of likes and dislikes has actually turned into something that is beneficial for the environment and something that lowers my ecological footprint.
ReplyDeleteAs for what I have eaten in the past two days that has a large environmental impact, I think peanut butter, cheese, and margarine have the largest impact on the environment and my body. Our “Skippy” peanut butter is definitely full of processed chemicals, and I quickly looked up the environmental impact of “I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter” which contained every ingredient that was a GMO or non-organic toxin.
Only within the past two years have I become conscious of what I eat and how it affects the environment. I have been a strict vegetarian since I was eleven, yet chose such a lifestyle for moral reasons. As I grew up I heard occasional comments on how vegetarianism is environmentally-friendly, yet never thought to explore why this may be. Over time, however, I began to learn of the detriments of the meat industry on the environment, and eventually began to incorporate the environment into my reasons as to why I am vegetarian. However, I still made no effort to go beyond this, as I was ignorant of how certain foods and products harmed our world. Recently, however, I have begun making small changes that I can control on an individual level.
ReplyDeleteThis class has also been fundamental in changing my bad habits and reiterating good habits I have been lazy at implementing. I have chosen to slowly convert back to veganism, hoping to go fully vegan by 2011. One of the major problems I face, unfortunately, is dissent from people who do not understand its environmental benefits. Merely, they see me as a radical hippy who is trying to save cows from being milked. Because people do not often understand the full environmental aspect when it comes to vegetarianism and veganism, it can be difficult to make my perspective explicit and understood. Often, I can ignore such opposition. Other times, however, I find myself falling into old habits, not only turning away from veganism habits but from eating habits in general that benefit the environment. This may include pouring milk into my tea when someone heckles me for attempting to abstain from it, or eating fruits regardless of whether they are locally grown.
Yet for the most part, I have attempted recently to make serious changes to my eating habits which take into consideration the environment. One such change includes eating as locally as possible given the high amounts of energy required to transport food; I try to not eat fruits and vegetables that are not grown within the region and thus require extensive travelling to end up on my plate, such as mango or kiwi. Additionally, I avoid food that is out of season because of the resources required to grow them artificially. Not only do I consider what foods I purchase and eat, but I also consider their packaging. Because of this, I abstain from buying plastic bottles and food that is excessively packaged.
ReplyDeleteHowever, even though I make an effort to avoid these things, I often unconsciously make decisions which ignore these attempts to help reduce my energy consumption. This brings me to what I have consumed within the last day. Considering everything I have eaten since yesterday, I would estimate that the food which has the largest environmental impact would have to be a small package of Sun-Maid raisins. They were individually packaged for convenience so that I could grab them in the morning and go, which means they subsequently require extra packaging (and thus energy) to cater to my need for convenience. Additionally, they are grown in California and thus a substantial amount of energy is required to transport them to the grocery store in DC where I ignorantly purchased them. While this small package of natural raisins is detrimental, I could also consider the cereal I ate for breakfast (which is packaged in both plastic and cardboard) or the individual tea bag I used to stay awake during class (which is more wasteful than loose tea) to make a negative impact on the environment. And yet I mindlessly consume such products in an effort to sustain myself rather than the environment.
While I assume I take the environment into consideration more than the typical American, it is obvious that I could do significantly more when it comes to my eating habits. One thing I never consider is the impact of eating processed foods, which require an immense amount of energy to be used in their production. Frozen foods as well fall into the category of serious energy waste, yet because of my fast-paced lifestyle I often turn to food like this without thinking of the ramifications. Such a dilemma depicts the general clash occurring in this field, that being between being environmentally-friendly and convenience-driven. Our culture seems to value fast-paced lifestyles, praising those that can juggle as much as possible. Such a lifestyle, by its nature, requires certain aspects to be sacrificed, such as eating habits. Thus, rather than taking the time to shop for environmentally-friendly (and healthy!) foods, people often resort to fast food, frozen food, and all that lies within this dark spectrum. Consider, for example, pre-cut vegetables; they are purchased in order to save time and energy cutting vegetables ourselves, yet the amount of energy that goes into producing these products is incredibly wasteful (particularly given how easy it is for us to do it ourselves!). Given this, it is apparent that we have chosen speed and progress over health and the environment. In this situation, energy is being wasted right and left, and no one wins.