More harm then good, but do we care?

I know the environmental impact many of the products we find in the supermarket have but when browsing the aisles, its easy to forget while scanning for dinner. The good thing is that the United States is so agriculturally rich that so much of the food we find in the supermarkets are from this country and don’t need to be shipped half way across the world. That being said, walking in the produce line gives a bit more of a sobering feeling. Walking thru the tables and tables of tropical fruits, its almost shocking at the abundance of fruit and vegetables that have been shipped across the world and the huge carbon footprint that this leaves. This is such a departure from reality when considering seasonal fruit no longer have meaning because we can get our strawberries and oranges anytime of the year. This is an unhealthy relationship. We can learn to ejoy the variety of seasonal fruits and move away from the expectation that everything should be available at all times.

The food items that probably had the largest environmental impact is no doubt the beef in my diet. The amount of energy in the form of cut down forests to make room for cattle, the vegetables grown and fed to the animals the slaughter, butchering and transportation of the animal and it finding its way as a patty in our meet section is mind boggling. Although the means of distribution has allowed us to lower the costs of this chain its still does considerable environmental harm.