Analyzing our Food

When I go grocery shopping, what goes through my head first is what do I need? The second thing is how can I get these items at the cheapest price possible. To be honest trying to buy organic or have a smaller carbon footprint does not really go through my head because, as a college student, I really try not to have a huge grocery bill. Usually the organic and specialty foods are on the more expensive side, so it doesn’t really make sense for me to get something I can get cheaper at the same store. When deciding to eat out, I do sometimes pay more attention to places that offer organic choices or places that provide local food choices. I will do this because it is a lot easier to buy at places that do the hard work for you! I also enjoy buying fair trade coffee, which is provided for a lot less money at some places and it is at least better for the developing countries, which in turn can help the environment. Honestly at this point in my life, although it’s not something I am proud of, buying environmentally friendly foods are only in my interest if they are the most inexpensive option. I will say that I try to stay away from very processed foods or fast food and try to at least buy items that are fresh. Hopefully this factor of my shopping is a step in the right direction.

Out of the last two days, the worst thing (for my body and the environment) was probably pizza. Not my first choice, but when its free I’ll take it! The pizza was the most impacting on the environment because of the way it got to our plates. It was delivery, so it made its way over in a car that put gas into the air. It was also delivered in a box, that was most likely not recycled cardboard, and the chances that it got recycled are slim because of the lack of facilities. Usually I get my groceries to my apartment by walking, so this definitely was a different and more harmful way to get my food. Also the fact that the ingredients were not organic and definitely not locally produced tells me that they travelled a long way before they were even made into a pizza. I actually read that the average meal travels from 5 different countries, that’s thousands of miles just to have one measly slice of pizza! The delivery, ingredients and materials put into the pizza made it the most harmful dinner that I’ll hopefully eat for a while.