E(at)nvironmentalism

1.) I'll admit it. I don't really notice what I eat. This is not to say that i'll shovel whatever food passes in front of my face, but I can honestly say there is little environmental consideration when I'm cooking a meal or eating out somewhere.

Now that I've gotten that off of my chest, I'd like to say that i'm also aware that I make other decisions about what I eat. I actively seek out supermarkets that host organic and local fair, usually in regards to convenience and price. I'll go out of my way to carpool to Trader Joes rather than settle for Giant, but that's not to say that all of my purchases are locally grown or produced. In shopping for food, I habitually bring my own bags and try to buy less packaged goods. There was a time in my life when I gave up beef and pork to try to reduce my carbon footprint (after learning of the huge amount of methane that cattle and pig farming produce) but as of late i've reverted to full omnivorism. Now I self-monitore the amount of cow or pig that I consume and typically rely on poultry based on personal preference.

2.) In the last two days I've eaten locally baked pastries and a bunch of coffee for breakfast (ham and cheese,) one egg/avocado/cheese sandwich for dinner, and one trip to a restaurant where I had a seasonal special, pork tenderloin and butternut squash. Out of all of this food I'd have to consider the coffee to have the greatest environmental impact due to shipping, roasting, and packaging. Everything else I ate was probably local to VA/MD/DC, but my coffee came all the way from Peru (fair trade at least...) I'm primarily using distance to determine my impact, but I recognize the resources that went into producing pork include a lot of feed to fatten up and energy to slaughter the pigs.