The Food I Eat

Before taking the ecological footprint quiz, I really hadn’t thought about the environment when buying food. I just thought that the big changes I was making toward the environment were with transportation. Yet, after taking the quiz, I’ve definitely thought about it a lot more. Sadly, because its winter and because we live in Washington DC, I don’t really think that there is too much I can do when buying food (especially considering my budget). However, when the weather gets a little warmer, I am going to try to buy locally grown food first.

When I think about the environment I think about how far food has traveled so that it can be in my local grocery store. I probably think about this process more when buying produce than other food items. I don’t really eat much meat, but I do eat some fish, and after hearing about fisheries being over fished I have contemplated this issue as well. At the same time, being a vegetarian for so many years, I find that it is important for me to eat chicken or fish when I can because it is really important for me to get protein, so I find that this is somewhat of a dilemma with what positive choice I should make (to be healthy, or to help the environment in some small way). In the last few days the food I ate that probably has the greatest environmental impact is probably the food I ate from going out to eat.