Me want food

When I make my food choices, I have environmental considerations in mind, but predominately “other stuff” guides my purchases. I mostly eat fruits and vegetables. A substantial part of my diet is vegan for a few reasons. For one, vegetables and beans are more economical than meat. They are cheaper in the store, last longer in the fridge, and take less time to prepare and cook. Living on a college student’s budget, I would rather buy cheap vegetables than cheap meat. When I see a $1.99 package of deli meat, it always reminds me of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, and it makes me wonder under what conditions the livestock was raised and under what conditions the meat was processed. I would rather not wonder. I also know that eating meat is not the environmentally sound choice, because the production of meat involves using substantial amounts of grain for feed and emits considerable amounts of methane.

Last week, out of my desire to not cook, I bought a frozen dinner of Thai noodles with chicken and vegetables. This definitely had the most environmental impact of my recent food choices. It also goes against Michael Pollan’s recommendation to follow one’s food from farm to fork (chopsticks in this case). The meal’s grains and vegetables were most likely not grown in the mid-Atlantic area (and most likely not from Thailand either), so they had to be transported across the country by fossil fuel-burning vehicles. The meal included meat, so that increases environmental impact because more resources (ie grain and fuel for transportation) were used. Finally, this meal was placed in a Safeway refrigerator which expends energy 24/7 keeping my food nice and frozen. There was a lot of resource, energy, and time expenditure in the production of my “quick and easy” frozen dinner.