1) A) One major ingredient I used in my dinner was boneless
chicken breasts made by Tyson. Although
it is hard to trace exactly where Tyson chicken is produced I gathered some
information about Tyson chicken farms. Tyson uses “more than 4,000 farmers to raise
chickens for Tyson Foods. We supply the
birds, feed and technical advice, while the farmers care for the chicken’s bye
providing the farm, housing and labor.
The average farmer has been raising chickens for us for 15 years.” So even though I can’t track the exact
location of where the chicken was raised, I found out that it was raised by a
Tyson Chicken farmer. Due to my
girlfriend being gluten free the second ingredient used in my meal was Tinkyada
gluten free brown rice pasta. I learned
that this pasta is produced by a company called Food Directions Inc in Ontario,
Canada.
B) I learned that in general “according to the United
Nations, raising animals for food (including land used for grazing and land
used to grow feed crops) now uses a staggering 30 percent of the Earth’s land
mass. Obviously these chickens being
raised fall into this category. Both the
chickens take up land to be raised and the crops grown to feed them take up
land as well. I also found that it takes
468 gallons of water to produce just 1 pound of chicken. This also obviously depletes our natural
resource of water. The pasta on the
other hand does not require nearly as much water to create. There is a small amount of water used to
create the pasta, and another small amount used to cook the pasta.
C) I found an article showing chemicals used in Tyson
Foods. I read that Chicken plant workers
would spray carcasses with dangerous chemicals.
Also although Tyson labels their chicken as being raised without
antibiotics, they admitted that they inject its chickens with antibiotics
before they even hatch.
D) I was unable to find any information regarding this,
however I made a few estimations on the subject. I have heard that where chickens are raised
is often a very dirty environment. I
know that workers have to wear masks while inside the chicken areas. Therefore I can imagine that these chicken
areas are definitely affecting the air quality in the surrounding area.
E) These impacts are local to the areas that the product is
being made, or the chickens are being produced.
Going along with the antibiotics being used, this turns into a global
issue, because people are affected all over the world wherever the chicken
reaches.
2) A) I personally bought my ingredients at my local grocery
store in downtown Milwaukee. I would
imagine that almost all of the products I consumed in this meal arrived at the
grocery store via truck.
B) I believe the ingredient that traveled the furthest to me
would be the pasta from Ontario, Canada.
There were other items that were fresh, however these were most likely
more local items since they were primarily fresh produce. For example there was green onions in my
meal, and I believe these were probably more local because they are a fresh
ingredient compared to dried pasta that has a longer shelf life.
C) There is quite a bit of waste when it came to my
meal. The chicken was packaged in a
Styrofoam container, which was wrapped in a plastic material that all went into
my garbage. The pasta was packaged in a
plastic packaging that I actually recycled, so that had less of an impact on
the environment.
3)Below is a picture shown where Tyson Foods has food plant
locations.
Sources:
http://www.tysonfoods.com/our-story/locations.aspx
http://www.tysonfoods.com/Our-Story/Farmers.aspx
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/meat-wastes-natural-resources/
