Course: WVA 104 Sauces, Condiments & Dressings

Reading

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Food Miles and Sustainability Strategies

In this reading assignment, students will examine the impact of food mileage and sustainability on product production. In the time food is grown, processed, and distributed most food has traveled an average of 1,300-1,500 miles before reaching the plate. Food miles represent the distance your food travels from where it is made to where it is eaten. This distance has increased during the last fifty years, and now processed food travels an average of 1,300 miles. At the Center for Environmental Education students will read about food miles and how food miles affect the environment.

As a way to minimize food miles and add more organic and local foods product production and institutionalized food service systems students will read and review the sustainability strategies developed by Beyond Green Partners. Students will read about Beyond Green Partners’ holistic sustainability strategies and the focus on quantifiable goals which range from the amounts of hormone free meat used in recipes to the percentages of recycled waste. In reading this information students are asked to consider how the factors of food mileage and the use of sustainability strategies can be implemented to add better quality foods into the food system.

Using the Food Miles Worksheet, students will locate four food items that have the shortest food mile distance. Students will calculate the distance from your location to the food item’s origin and the producer’s location. Calculate the food mileage totals, list the cost of the item, and try different combinations to create the shortest distance. This data will be used to answer this week’s discussion board questions.

Click here to access the Center for Environmental Education (CEE) website.