An excellent article from What's 4 Eats: International Recipes & Cooking Around the World
These days we all want to help improve the environment, minimize global warming and leave behind a better world for following generations. But the enormity of the environmental issues we all face can be overwhelming and intimidating. What can little old you do to make a difference in such a big, big world?
You’re in luck! You can take some simple, small steps that work out to a big effect. I’ve put together a list of 5 things you can do to have a maximum impact with a minimum effort. These suggestions don’t call for a radical change in your behavior, just a modest adjustment to what you buy and when you buy it.
1. Aim Low on the Food Chain
Avoid highly processed foods, those that come in brightly colored boxes or shrink-wrapped plastic trays and have accompanying powdered flavoring packets. All that processing uses gobs of water and energy to make an end product that is basically predigested for you.
Buy whole grains, fresh fruits, seasonal vegetables. Make simple meals that you prepare yourself. You don’t have to cut out processed foods completely. They are simply too convenient in our time-pressed world. And some are mighty tasty. But change your emphasis toward fresh and buy your food as close to its original form as possible.
2. Stick to the Season and Buy Local
When you buy produce in season, you’re not just getting the freshest fruits and vegetables at their peak flavor. You are also cutting back – way back – on the carbon-based fuel needed to get them to you.
It’s a simple equation. A bunch of grapes from Modesto, California, travels about 1,800 miles to get to a market in Des Moines, Iowa. Grapes from Santiago, Chile have to be hauled over 5,500 miles to make it to that same market. The California grapes use about 1/3 as much energy in transit as the grapes from Chile.
Apart from the energy used in delivery, the regulation of pesticides abroad is often less stringent than in the U.S. Produce bought in the winter from Mexico and other Central American countries can contain levels of pesticides higher than those allowed in domestically produced fruits and vegetables.
Check out the Whats4Eats Seasonality Page to find out what to buy when. Support local agriculture by shopping at your local farmer’s markets. Join an organization dedicated to community-supported agriculture (CSA). Local Harvest is a non-profit dedicated to promoting organic and local food. Their website has a nation-wide directory that can guide you to farmer’s markets, CSAs and other local food sources near you.
3. Moderate the Meat (and Seafood)
It has been estimated that it takes anywhere from 1,000 to over 2,000 gallons of water to produce just one pound of beef. Compare that to the roughly 50-75 gallons needed for a pound of corn.
Meat and poultry are energy and water-intensive to produce. Cattle, pigs and chickens eat large amounts of grain from fields sprayed with fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. And once that grain is digested, it comes out the other end as methane– a powerful greenhouse gas. Large, corporate chicken and pig farms ooze waste and tend to poison local water supplies.
Commercial salmon farms spread parasitic diseases to wild salmon, and fish that escape the farms weaken the wild gene pool. Trawl nets wipe whole areas of the ocean clean and decimate the ocean floor where they are dragged.
Not a pretty picture, huh? But you don’t have to turn vegan. Just cut back. Have meatless nights. Eat smaller portions. Use meat more as a condiment than as the center of the meal. Buy organic, free-range meats and poultry. Don’t buy fish that is raised or caught in unsustainable or damaging ways (Monterey Bay Aquarium is a great resource).
4. Go for Organic on Staples
Organic is definitely healthier for the environment. But it’s also more expensive. Too expensive for the budgets of many families. So how about targeting just a few items? Choose organic for staples like potatoes or milk. Or focus your organic purchases on those vegetables and fruits that aren’t peeled before eating. (Pesticides are concentrated on the surface of produce.)
Taking a targeted approach is easier on the pocketbook and can have a bigger impact than focusing on smaller purchases like organic herbs or potato chips.
5. Minimize Your Waste
Choose paper over plastic. Or better yet, buy a reusable cloth bag. They’ve become trendy and can be found in designer styles. Avoid overly packaged goods. You know what I mean. Foods that come in a pouch in a bag in a box wrapped in plastic and tied up with a bow. Recycle any packaging you can.
Start a compost pile for your vegetable scraps. You’ll keep waste out of landfills and produce a rich soil additive for your garden or your neighbor’s. Even if you live in an urban apartment there are composting options available to you.
You don’t have to lead the life of an ascetic to be eco-friendly. The fight against global warming and environmental degradation doesn’t require enormous personal sacrifice. Follow these 5 Simple Steps to Greener Eating and you’ll be amazed at the impact you can have and how easy it is to do!
These days we all want to help improve the environment, minimize global warming and leave behind a better world for following generations. But the enormity of the environmental issues we all face can be overwhelming and intimidating. What can little old you do to make a difference in such a big, big world?
You’re in luck! You can take some simple, small steps that work out to a big effect. I’ve put together a list of 5 things you can do to have a maximum impact with a minimum effort. These suggestions don’t call for a radical change in your behavior, just a modest adjustment to what you buy and when you buy it.
1. Aim Low on the Food Chain
Avoid highly processed foods, those that come in brightly colored boxes or shrink-wrapped plastic trays and have accompanying powdered flavoring packets. All that processing uses gobs of water and energy to make an end product that is basically predigested for you.
Buy whole grains, fresh fruits, seasonal vegetables. Make simple meals that you prepare yourself. You don’t have to cut out processed foods completely. They are simply too convenient in our time-pressed world. And some are mighty tasty. But change your emphasis toward fresh and buy your food as close to its original form as possible.
2. Stick to the Season and Buy Local
When you buy produce in season, you’re not just getting the freshest fruits and vegetables at their peak flavor. You are also cutting back – way back – on the carbon-based fuel needed to get them to you.
It’s a simple equation. A bunch of grapes from Modesto, California, travels about 1,800 miles to get to a market in Des Moines, Iowa. Grapes from Santiago, Chile have to be hauled over 5,500 miles to make it to that same market. The California grapes use about 1/3 as much energy in transit as the grapes from Chile.
Apart from the energy used in delivery, the regulation of pesticides abroad is often less stringent than in the U.S. Produce bought in the winter from Mexico and other Central American countries can contain levels of pesticides higher than those allowed in domestically produced fruits and vegetables.
Check out the Whats4Eats Seasonality Page to find out what to buy when. Support local agriculture by shopping at your local farmer’s markets. Join an organization dedicated to community-supported agriculture (CSA). Local Harvest is a non-profit dedicated to promoting organic and local food. Their website has a nation-wide directory that can guide you to farmer’s markets, CSAs and other local food sources near you.
3. Moderate the Meat (and Seafood)
It has been estimated that it takes anywhere from 1,000 to over 2,000 gallons of water to produce just one pound of beef. Compare that to the roughly 50-75 gallons needed for a pound of corn.
Meat and poultry are energy and water-intensive to produce. Cattle, pigs and chickens eat large amounts of grain from fields sprayed with fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. And once that grain is digested, it comes out the other end as methane– a powerful greenhouse gas. Large, corporate chicken and pig farms ooze waste and tend to poison local water supplies.
Commercial salmon farms spread parasitic diseases to wild salmon, and fish that escape the farms weaken the wild gene pool. Trawl nets wipe whole areas of the ocean clean and decimate the ocean floor where they are dragged.
Not a pretty picture, huh? But you don’t have to turn vegan. Just cut back. Have meatless nights. Eat smaller portions. Use meat more as a condiment than as the center of the meal. Buy organic, free-range meats and poultry. Don’t buy fish that is raised or caught in unsustainable or damaging ways (Monterey Bay Aquarium is a great resource).
4. Go for Organic on Staples
Organic is definitely healthier for the environment. But it’s also more expensive. Too expensive for the budgets of many families. So how about targeting just a few items? Choose organic for staples like potatoes or milk. Or focus your organic purchases on those vegetables and fruits that aren’t peeled before eating. (Pesticides are concentrated on the surface of produce.)
Taking a targeted approach is easier on the pocketbook and can have a bigger impact than focusing on smaller purchases like organic herbs or potato chips.
5. Minimize Your Waste
Choose paper over plastic. Or better yet, buy a reusable cloth bag. They’ve become trendy and can be found in designer styles. Avoid overly packaged goods. You know what I mean. Foods that come in a pouch in a bag in a box wrapped in plastic and tied up with a bow. Recycle any packaging you can.
Start a compost pile for your vegetable scraps. You’ll keep waste out of landfills and produce a rich soil additive for your garden or your neighbor’s. Even if you live in an urban apartment there are composting options available to you.
You don’t have to lead the life of an ascetic to be eco-friendly. The fight against global warming and environmental degradation doesn’t require enormous personal sacrifice. Follow these 5 Simple Steps to Greener Eating and you’ll be amazed at the impact you can have and how easy it is to do!
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