"Food Miles" Reflection

     In the food miles activity we tried to predict the carbon footprint of certain items. The carbon foot print of each item where: waffles- 800 units, spaghetti and meatballs- 1600 units, whole grain cereal- 1224 units, and 1 fresh fruit- 84 units. This showed that the spaghetti and meatballs had the highest carbon footprint compared to the other products because a lot of process went into it from the point where it started to our plates, whereas fresh fruit had a lower carbon footprint because it went through less process to get to consumers. I learned that growing food closer to home is better for the environment and for us. Fruits and vegetables will have more nutrients because it grow in full ripeness instead of harvested early and ripened with chemicals gasses in transport and storage. Food grown further away results in large quantities of greenhouse gas emissions; the bigger the food footprint, the bigger the carbon footprint. 
     The food that I eat mostly comes from California, Florida, Canada, Mexico, Chile, etc. because I buy them at a Supermarket. I can reduce my own food miles by going to the Farmer's market in Boston, and buy locally grown food instead of buying oranges grown in Florida. I can also plant my own vegetable garden in the backyard during spring/summer time. Food miles is important to the environment because not growing food locally is producing major greenhouse emissions. Growing food far away is using up a lot of energy and food safety is also an issue. To reduce the carbon footprint we have to grow food locally and eat healthier. The smaller the distance the better it is.