Ethical Eating

The topic of food and agriculture sparks a lot of discussion for me particularly because I am taking Nicholson's other class called "The Political Economy of Food and Agriculture." The class explores the issues surround food and agriculture production and the environmental and political issues associated with it. Lately we have talks a lot about commodity chains and thinking about the "miles" our food has traveled to get to our tables. Before taking the class, I thought about such issues and tried to eat locally, but since our class discussions I've started to consider all facets of food production. When I walk down the supermarket isles and see boxes of frozen spring rolls, jars of marshmallow fluff, and packages of instant Asian noodles, I can't help but think of the different kinds of production that went into bringing the food from the fields to the shelves. The ingredients in the spring rolls could have come from all over, been shipped by trucks to the same packaging facility, mass-produced into spring rolls by machine, then packaged into the plastic-coated paper box that is cardboard. All of these actions have a greater affect on the environment than the average consumer can even begin to imagine. In terms of food issues, people mostly associate environmental degradation with meat production. But while this certainly claims many of the problems, eating a kiwi in DC in the middle of February isn't exactly eco-friendly. The kiwi probably came from some far away country like Peru or the Caribbean, so the transportation it went through to get to DC emitted thousands of molecules of C02 into the atmosphere.
In the past few days, I've been the opposite of an environmentally-friendly eater. Since I regularly babysit, and the family offers me dinner and keeps a full-stocked pantry I usually find myself eating anything that's there and snack-able just because it's free and so readily available for me. This usually means frozen pizza, avocados, and the occasional Raisinette. I know that eating an avocado in February is just as bad as eating a kiwi, but it's healthy and it's free so I take it. I think a lot of college students have this mentality, that no matter how bad something is for us or the environment, the cheap food is the easiest to get, so that's what we typically eat. I would love to eat an entirely organic diet, but that's extremely expensive and difficult in the winter. Just not an option at this point in my life.
For lunch today I splurged a little and went to Baja Fresh, a fast-food Mexican eatery that spoons out guacamole with every order and also has a salsa bar. I ate a tostata with tomatoes, onions, corn, beans, chicken, cheese, and many other Mexican flavors. I'm pretty sure this meal had the greatest environmental impact because of the variety of vegetables that probably came from far away. I don't even want to think about the chicken. Beverages also have serious environmental impacts because of all the chemicals and sugar-substances that are added. I took a fruit juice at lunch that was packed with citric acid, sucralose, and other chemicals that have to be taken from other substances (parts of citric acid come from oils produced from corn) that involve heavy processing and thus tack-on food miles to what I drank.
In short, it's really hard to eat well while also limiting our environmental impact. If one really only ate locally and didn't eat any processed, packaged foods, his diet would lack variation and certain vitamins. Especially here in DC in February, where local produce isn't the greatest. How can we avoid eating packaged food or food that has been shipped over international borders when these options are so readily available to us?