Blog Post #3 : Enviormental Impacts of Your Meal or Product

In this blog post I will walk through the impacts that your meal, diet, or other products of consumption has on the enviorment by explaining some of the things in my personal life that effect the enviorment. 

In my daily routine I start my morning off with coffee, usually with almond creamer and lavender syrup. But where do these ingridents to make this morning blend come from? Well to start all of the indridients I use are from local buisnesses which I tend to prefer as they give the most gauruntee of having authentic organic products. Such as the coffee blend itself, I purchase Colectivo coffee a Milwaukee area local coffee buisness. They have specific blends that are from different parts of the world based on their roast and acidity. I prefur to buy the Dark Sumutra Highlands blend, the blend is named after its orgin where the coffee was grown by "small-scale farmers in the Gayo Highlands of Aceh Provience, located on the northen tip of the Indoneasian island of Sumutra"(Colectivo Sumutra Blend). All of the producers of the coffee blends sold by Colectivo all belong to the Organic Fair Trade coopetatives. This small business chooses these initmate farms as they "are dedicated to producing some of the best coffees in their region"(Colectivo). In my opinion that makes the most sense for a small buinsess to support other small organizations all just trying to be the best in their field. Now we move on to the almond creamer that I mix into this beautifully dark roast. I buy my Silk Almond Creamer at our local Outpost grocery store in the Milwaukee area. Silk itself may nit be a small local buisness but it is known for its amazing plant based creamer in many other citites and states. Silk grows their product in Boulder, Colorado. Their product has defineity become more mainstream which is great since it has become more avaliable to find. Then lastly into the mix is the sweetener, I prefer lavender syrup that I make myself but buy the lavender buds from a local spice shop; Penzys Spices. They import the lavender from France which is wonderful since it helps support International Fair Trade. The sugar I use to boil these lavender buds in to make the syrup is usually Targets Good and Gather brand. They import their sugar from China as it leads in the worlds largest sugar importer. 

Some enviormental impacts that could be associated with the production of the ingridents hopefully isnt much. I try to choose foods and ingridents that are more natural and small farm rather than commercial and industrial. The only ingridents production that I feel would have a negative impact on the enviorment would be the the impact that the sugar mills have on the waste water that is harmful to the fauna that lives around it. For example Joypurhat Sugar Mills Ltd in Bangledesh have had field surveys conducted showed that the majority of the negative influences from the mill effected fish, crops and human health (Sugar Mills). Based on the lectures and readings the contaminantion of waste water getting into the flora and fauna of the enviorment around the mill can cause serious consiquenses to its ecosystem. The impacts that transportation has that are associated with the ingridents are most likely any ships that are used to transport the goods across the sea. Most the time those cargo ships spew carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions into the air creating air pollution(Cargo Ships). The plastic that the indriedents came in may have also bencome a factor in harming the enviorment if not diposed of properaly. 

These impacts are local with the fact that all the goods that are shipped to the united states to make these ingridents were all going to "local" small buisnesses. I feel like just making the conscious effort to try to research where youre food is coming from and how you can help reduce any pollution that may have transpired because of that shipment or the waste of that product is very important. But also to make sure that you do not buy from companies that with a little bit of research you can find that their factories or insustrial buildings are doing more harm to the enviorment. 

Sugar Mills

Colectivo Sumutra Blend

Cargo Ships Impact

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