My food choices

When I'm hungry the first question that always runs through my head is “how much should I eat?” Not because I'm concerned about over eating or anything, but because I often don't know when the next time I'll be able to eat is. I need to know how many hours I'll be sitting in class, studying, waiting tables, biking, etc. I need to know if I have snacks to pack (or if I'll even be in a situation in which I can eat a snack) and if not I need to determine what is heavy and will sustain me for the next 6 hours or more. Sometimes I also find that I'm hungry, but I'm suppose to meet my friends for dinner in a few an hour, so I need to know what is light.

After determining how much to eat, my next step is what to eat. My fridge is usually pretty bare. I like to eat fresh and I don't like to buy things that end up rotting. I also dumpster dive, so what I have available also depends on my free time. I live behind Firehook Bakery in Cleveland Park, so it's basically guarantied that I have a blueberry muffin, croissant, donut, vegetable sandwich, and some loaves of bread somewhere (if my housemates didn't get them first). If I've had enough time, I'll also make my way to Trader Joe's in Bathesda, usually supplying me with eggs, vegetables,fruit, bread, hummus, some pastries, cereal, and whatever else happens to have “expired” or gotten dented. Dumpster diving has definitely shaped the way I look at food. The amount of food I see in dumpsters, no matter how many times I see it, always upsets me. So when I eat, I like to eat knowing that what I have isn't getting logged into a computer so that the store can buy more. They already buy too much. I've also found that sometimes I get a little twinge of guilt when I do buy food and sit down to eat it. As a joke, when my friend sees me eating something I've purchased he enjoys telling me that I'm eating the seeds of capitalism and thus, helping to end the world. Of course, it's an exaggeration, but there is something about eating food that would normally be left to rot (all the food I get from the dumpster is usually weeks away from actually expiring) in a landfill somewhere and then replaced with more food that would also end up rotting, that feels good. I'm also a vegetarian, so that is definitely something I find myself thinking about when I go out to eat or buy something on campus quick between classes. Other than these thoughts, I don't think much else about what I eat, except whether or not it tastes good.

Over the past few days I've eaten mostly pastries and sandwiches from Firehook, but I did buy a sandwich and some chips yesterday for lunch from the cafe in Ward. My guess is that those chips had the greatest environmental impact. First, they were made in a factory producing tons of other little bags of chips. Plus I'm sure the potatoes were cut using a machine that uses energy. Not to mention it was packaged, which took a lot of energy and materials to produce. Then, the chips had to be shipped to AU. From what I know about Firehook (I've never actually gone into the place), most of the food is prepared there. They also use a lot of organic foods, which decreases the environmental impact. Thinking about those chips now makes me feel a little guilty, but they were really tasty, so I'm sure I'll buy them again. But I'll probably wait a few weeks.