My Year in Meals

My New Year's resolution was to take a photograph of every meal I eat for the entire year and write a little bit about where it came from. The driving reasons for this are to ensure that I am conscious of everything I eat and to provide me with a record of how well I did at making sustainable, healthy, ethical and economically responsible food choices throughout the year.

It is not a coincidence that I put "economically responsible" at the end of that list. Like perhaps most Americans, before last year I used to be obsessed with the idea that food should be first and foremost cheap, and didn't care much whether it was sustainable, healthy or ethical. I pretty much ate what I wanted when I wanted. I did quit eating fast food for about six months after I read Fast Food Nation many years ago, but what I learned from that book faded over time.

Last year I went on a bit of a kick, watching documentaries like King Corn and Food, Inc. and reading Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma and Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals, among others. As a result I became a member of a food co-op and started paying attention to what I eat and where it comes from. Although my performance was far from perfect over the year, I believe about 80% of the meat and produce I purchased was from local, organic and humane sources. This time next year I should be able to provide more precise data.

The quality of the photos won't always be good. For now anyway I will be taking the pictures with the 5 MegaPixel camera on my Dell Streak tablet/phone and I won't always be steady (like when I'm on a train). However I'll probably start using a better camera when I'm at home and maybe even start carrying it around with me. I'll probably also use this as a general diet and fitness journal, post recipes, etc.

Anyway, hope you enjoy looking around.