Food Choices

I am not a vegetarian, but when it comes to eating meat or fish, I am very picky about where it come from and whether it was farmed or caught in the wild. I buy free range chicken and refer myself to my seafood watch leaflet to choose which fish is best to buy. As for fruits and vegetables, I go to local organic markets in order to get fresher produce that have more taste and have had less of a negative impact on the environment. At restaurants, although I worry just as much about which fish is offered and where it comes from, I don't usually think about the vegetables as much. 

When it comes to packaged foods, I don't eat pre-made meals but buy cereal, rice, pasta--the basics. For these items, I only choose on the basis of price and taste preference. The same applies for dairy products--I choose cheese according to what I like. In France, I will buy cheese from local producers at the local market, but in DC, local cheese is way too expensive for my student funds, so I usually buy cheese at the supermarket, and it's hardly ever locally produced.

I think a lot about the environment when I choose which food items to buy, however I am also very much aware of what my body needs. I don't eat too much meat because of the impact it has on our environment, but I cannot live without it. My body feels weak after a few days without meat proteins, so I make sure I eat some once in a awhile to keep my level of energy up. (Plus, meat is gooood.) 

Out of everything I've eaten in the past couple days, I think Gruyere was the item with the greatest environmental impact. Because even though the processing of it has a low environmental impact, cows require a lot of grazing space, food and water to produce milk, and since it came from France, it came to the US by plane, which is the mode of transportation with the highest carbon consumption.