To start things off, I'd say the most realistic environmental impacts that took place by preparing my meal goes as follows: In order to prepare such a meal, one must have freshly ordered chicken, salad, dough, and a bunch of condiments (I will get into those a little bit later), I just want to start at the very beginning. Where does the fresh food come from and how does a restaurant receive such ingredients to prepare the meal I had? Also, the main question to handle first is how does it impact the environment? Here are the steps and impacts I came up with...
Step 1: They have to find a distributor.
Step 2: They have to place a order for certain foods/ingredients.
Step 3: They have to have these items delivered through some type of transportation.
Impact 1: In finding a distributor, they are using power/electric and forms of transmitting a signal to find such a place.
Impact 2: Once again, they are using power/electric to transmit a type of signal or communication in regards to place a order.
Impact 3: Whomever takes care of the transportation, they are paying for a semi-truck, train, plane, etc. to pollute the air with the gas/oil and other toxins each method of transportation releases.
A. Where were three ingredients produced from my meal?
1. Chicken - One can find chicken throughout many places in the world, and since there are many in North America, I'd guess the chain of Olive Garden has many different providers for receiving chicken meat. And I'd guess that each chain has a relatively close provider to their business. But for the sake of this assignment, I looked up the state with the most chicken production, which just so happens to be Georgia.
2. Salad - Now, I'm just talking about mixed greens here, which once again is kind of a easy and common veggie to grow, which one again can be found throughout North America. But for the sake of the assignment I found out what states have the highest production of lettuce, which are California and Arizona.
3. Dough - Honestly, dough can be found and made anywhere, all one needs is some yeast, a little liquid, add flower, and then beat/mix it altogether. After that one needs to roll the dough and then bake it, can be done from anywhere.
B. The ingredients from my meal affected certain resources for many reasons. This resources happened to be soil, water, and seeds/plants. The lettuce used water and soil to help grow, as did the yeast and flower for the dough. The chicken used plenty of water to survive and then polluted the soil and water by it's droppings and other ways about how they live.
C. I don't think fossil fuels were used, but I do know some chemicals were. Some chemicals definitely affected the soil and groundwater around these plants and roots of the lettuce heads and yeast stems. Chemical agriculture is something we've talked about before and something that helps produce food faster, but I still do not understand its' full potential or negative potential.
D. Once again, I believe the production of my meal had a great deal with carbon-dioxide emissions because of how the food had to transferred and transported to the restaurant in order to be prepared to serve. When something needs to be transported it effects the environment on a scale set with many different factors, such as climate change and etc.
E. Some of these impacts are local and some could be worldwide. I think the local impacts are those of the chicken farms that are only breed just to serve as food later because of how those areas are over-ran with chicken droppings and other non-clean factors. The global could be how some plants are chemically raised in order to meet a higher demand because of how wind and water can make the smallest thing travel great distances.
2. I've kind of already touched on this by my earlier writings but to continue on this topic I will try to look further into it...
A. I think the meal got to me by some type of vehicle, such as a van or truck/semi-truck.
B. I think the farthest item that traveled to get to me was the lettuce, since most lettuce in the U.S. is grown in the west, that would be my best bet. Also, I think the chicken is local. It seems most restaurants these days want to have a "local" appeal to customers.
C. This is a very good question! I believe the waste from my food (just that of mine), had a big impact on the environment. First off, to clean my plate, that takes water. Second, to throw my food into a trash bag (which is plastic), already creates more waste then that of my meal. The waste will go to a dump, which will be spread out and"filtered". The overall impact is more then that of a good meal. There is packaging that goes to waste, the unused parts of each ingredient and etc.
