Is My Meal a Possible Solution?

 

Is my meal a possible solution to environmental impacts associated with consumption?

The chicken in my meal was raised by a company that based their business on leaving a small carbon footprint. If the other mass chicken producers would do the same, there would be less water used in production and feed would be grown in the same areas that the chickens are grown. While the Tecumseh Chicken Company still uses water and burns some fossil fuels, they are aware of these things. They make decisions based on how the environment will be affected. If all companies did these things we would be facing many less negative impacts on our precious ecosystem.

The green beans and tomatoes in my meal were locally grown. One at a local farm, and one in my back yard. If more meals were made with local ingredients, there would be almost no carbon footprint associated with them. There would be no soil, air, or water pollution problems associated with consumption if this were the case.

The quinoa, on the other hand, wasn’t good for the environment, at all. While it has a low glycemic value, and is good for me, nutrition wise, it wasn’t a good decision for the environment. Both locally and globally, transporting ingredients from a continent away are not sustainable. Many fossil fuels were burned to get that quinoa from South America to Milwaukee.

Although the chicken had packaging that had to be thrown away, the meal didn’t really contribute that much to the amount of garbage that we put out every Sunday night. Veggie leftovers were composted, and therefore added to the nutrient content in my garden’s soil.

The limitations of the meal that I had were that not everyone has time to go to the farmer’s market or to grow veggies in their garden. This is very unfortunate because those who don’t have the time will spend more time, money and energy eating at restaurants or shopping at “big box” stores, so they can get everything at once. Another limitation is that Smart Chicken is expensive, and it may be difficult for everyone to be able to afford to buy it compared to mass produced, factory farmed chicken. 

There are some good things about my meal, and some bad things, when thinking about it environmentally. I think that the best answer would be to grow and store more food at home. If we all reduced our "outside" consumption, even by a little bit, we would make great positive changes locally and globally.