I love processed food.
I love fast food. I love frozen pizzas and boxed macaroni and cheese. I love sandwiches and “throw-it-on-the-stove” dinners.
I know these foods are harming my health and the environment.
The packaging from a single to-go order from A&W is ridiculous. It has a paper bag, a bag for the fries, a paper-foil wrap for the burger and a cup with a plastic lid. There is also the straw, the straw wrapper, the ketchup container and its lid too. Most of these items are not recyclable, and the trash does not simply go “away.” Rather, it goes in a landfill. Forever.
The red meat in that burger is carcinogenic, and the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations that farm cows for their meat are one of the largest producers of greenhouse gases in the world.
In fact, the global livestock industry is the No. 1 producer of greenhouse gases on earth at 14.5 percent of total emissions. That is more than the entire transportation sector.
And yet, I love processed food.
I love how easy it is. I love how it doesn’t require me to invest my time into it. I love how it delivers a hot, satisfying meal no matter the time of day or lack of sobriety. I love how processed food loves me.
If I don’t think about it, it’s easy to forget the fact that I’m eating what was once a living creature and that these tomatoes might’ve been picked by people making less than two dollars a day. It’s easy to forget that these pieces of trash and meat factories are doing direct harm to my earth.
It’s not like I don’t know how to roast brussels sprouts or soak black beans or make some killer meal in my slow cooker. It’s not like I’m not spending way more money than I have to for foods that don’t fully nourish me. It’s not like I don’t have the time to chop bell peppers or prepare quinoa.
I do have all those things, and yet I continue to vote with my wallet and my gullet and consume terrible food.
I think I haven’t made the transition to more sustainable food habits because I don’t actually have to. There has yet to be a hard line to change my behavior. So far, my health feels fine and my pocketbook isn’t crying.
The most terrible impact I’m making, though, is the one most difficult to experience personally. I haven’t seen the climate change around me and so it’s easy for me to keep contributing to hurricanes in New Jersey and floods in Louisiana.
Will I make better habits of using my kitchen and avoiding Taco Bell? I’m sure I will, but that’s what I said last year.
Jack Olson
can be reached at