Food Intake/Packaging

I love to eat. I never really cared too much about where food comes from or how it's made, just so long as it tastes good. With this journal entry, I decided to keep track of how much food I eat and how many calories I intake. For breakfast every morning, to start out with, I eat a bowl of cereal, Apple Jacks to be exact.
(Photo courtesy of http://theswca.com/index.php?action=disp_item&item_id=61444)

I poured the amount I typically ate, which was about 2 cups, and a cup of milk totaling the calories to be 240 calories according to the nutrition label on the side of the box. For lunch, I always eat a turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread. Today was no different. I use Oscar Mayer Turkey Breast meat, Arnold's 100% Whole Wheat bread and Borden's Dairy Singles, White American Cheese. Two slices of cheese are 140 calories, two slices of Turkey are approximately 32 calories, and 220 calories for two slices of whole wheat bread, totaling 392 calories for lunch. For dinner I ate a Red Baron pepperoni pizza. The total calories for the entire pizza equaled 1240 calories!

(Photo courtesy of http://www.caymanshoppers.com/page10.html)


I only drink water each day since I gave up Soda for lent, and I drank 6 bottles of Aquafina water, each equaling 16.9 fluid oz, or 12 glasses of water.





















All in all, my food is essentially pre-made, coming from factories and grocery stores. The Aquafina water I purchase isn't exactly the best way I could go about getting my water in terms of being eco-friendly, however I do purchase the new Eco-Fina bottles. According to aquafina, their new Eco-Fina bottles use 50% less plastic than their 2002 bottles, and save 75 million pounds of plastic each year (http://lighterfootstep.com/2009/03/aquafinas-new-eco-fina-bottle-greenwash-or-progress/). After doing some research I wasn't able to find exactly how much energy is put into making the other items of food that are pre-made, that I eat however I could find some other alternatives. I could perhaps purchase food to make my own pizza and actually buy organic tomatoes, to make my sauce for it. In terms of my lunch, I feel there isn't really any other way to make that more sustainable.
Outside of food, I also go about my business each day, handling items that may have a standing effect on the environment. Each day that I go to Publix I always get a plastic bag to put my groceries in. I could instead use the Green Publix bags.













(Photo courtesy of http://sustainability.publix.com/what_we_are_doing/community.reusable_bags.php)

To this day, over 700 million plastic bags have been saved since the introduction of these reusable bags (http://sustainability.publix.com/what_we_are_doing/community.reusable_bags.php). Another way I could save on the things that I handle personally could be using a lunch box instead of a paper bag to carry my lunch to work. Every day I use a plastic sandwich bag and a paper bag for lunch when I go to work and I never really considered how wasteful that could be. I never really thought about how much energy goes into making plastic bags in general. Oil needs to be pumped up from the ground to power refineries and then shipped to these factories, requiring energy to get the oil and then transport it. The factories run on electricity to power and change the oil into material that will then be made into plastic. The machines operate to fix the plastic into bags (http://www.midamericanenergy.com/eew/help/act_bags_plastic.html). Looking back at this, I think that I will take a stance and begin using reusable bags instead of plastic bags for my grocery shopping.