When we shop at our local grocery store we don't pay much attention to where the food we're buying comes from. We expect our favorite items to be readily available for our purchase, but we don't think about how long it took for those items to be available to us. We do not consider the environmental and economic impacts incurred in providing these items or the distance these items travel before arriving at the store. We don't think about the types of chemicals or fertilizers used to grow and produce food, but maybe we should. Let's examine a meal consisting of shrimp cocktail, appetizer, ribeye, macaroni and cheese, green beans, pineapple casserole, dinner rolls and banana pudding. Some of these items traveled over 1,500 miles to get to the local grocery store and some had preservatives added so they would survive the journey (Landford, Blake, 2011). The shrimp we see in the seafood section of our grocery store don't necessarily come from our local waters. About ninety percent of the shrimp we see in our grocery stores are imported, and a small percentage are actually caught by American fishermen. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of the shrimp placed on the market is actually produced domestically (Fish Watch, 2013). The ribeye most likely comes from a beef processing plant in the United States, however up to ten percent of the beef we see in our stores is imported from other countries. If the drought continues and feed prices continue to increase, the amount of livestock raised and slaughtered in the United States will decrease and the percentage of beef imported and stored in our stores will increase (Andrews, 2013). Macaroni and cheese has long been a part of the American diet. If we do......middle of paper......Sources of your favorite seafood. Retrieved December 11, 2013, from Fish Watch: http://www.fishwatch.gov/features/top10seafoods_and_sources_10_10_12.htmlFood Production Daily. (2003, June 02). Contamination of fresh products. Retrieved December 15, 2013, from Food Production Daily: http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Supply-Chain/Fresh-produce-contaminationLandford, Blake. (2011, July). Local food: does it matter what we eat? Retrieved December 12, 2013, from Clemson Cooperative Extension: http://www.clemson.edu/extension/county/horry/documents/local_fact_sheet.pdfUnited States Department of Agriculture. (2013, July 15). Checklist for importing processed meat, poultry and egg products. Retrieved December 14, 2013, from United States Department of Agriculture: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/international-affairs/importing-products/import-checklist