Convenience > Quality - The Life of a College Student

Food has to be one of my most favorite things in the world. I enjoy learning about it watching Anthony Bourdain, cooking with it in the kitchen and of eating it at the table. At this point in my life, what I consider when making food choices encompasses a variety of variables.

As a college senior with a full course load and internship, convenience (unfortunately) is the most important consideration I take into account when making food choices. With a busy schedule and new obligations coming up all the time, I usually get to spend less time preparing and enjoying food than I would like to. Of course there are ways that I’ve found to get around this dilemma. On Sunday nights, I like to make a large casserole that will last me a few days in the form of leftovers, so that I can eat convenient meals throughout the week that I had the pleasure of making myself.

The second most important thing I take into account is the quality of the food, which for me represents its taste, healthiness and how natural it is. For example, one of my favorite foods is pizza, something one finds in the cheapest back alleys and most expensive Italian restaurants around the world. But when pizza has been made with fresher tomatoes and less processed cheese, it’s healthier, more natural and better tasting. This is why I don’t eat at McDonald’s and why Subway usually doesn’t do it for me – sure they may meet my first criteria of being convenient, but the quality of the food often borders on being atrocious. I’m hoping that once out of college however, I will have more time to dedicate to the kitchen and more money as well to purchase fresher, higher quality ingredients, instead of thinking of convenience first and quality later.

Looking back over the past few days, I would say the food or beverage with the highest environmental impact that I consumed was the foie gras appetizer I ate on Wednesday night. First off, it’s meat, so by default already, the amount of Calories put into its production far outweigh the resulting number of Calories consumed by me. Second, not only was it meat, but it foie gras, a product that requires insane amounts of food Calories to produce it on top of already being a meat product. Finally, due to the nature of making it, very few producers in the U.S. make fois gras, meaning that my sampling was probably shipped over from France. Such a journey requires transportation with fossil fuels, and any 3,000-mile journey over water isn’t exactly modest with its fossil fuel consumption. Thankfully this isn’t something I eat every day or even every month, but nonetheless, its impact on the environment is quite harsh.