SUSTAINABILITY: One Bite at a Time, Part III

Where to Shop? (when cooking/eating sustainably)

Farmers Markets

Farmers markets are the best place to find fresh, local, seasonal, and oftentimes organically grown produce and other food stuffs (ie honey, and cheese, and bread and even meat). By buying from local vendors you are supporting your local farmers and strengthening the community while eating/buying your way to a more sustainable lifestyle, reducing fossil fuels associated with packaging and transporting and cooling non local produce. Furthermore when you but organic you are reducing the negative impact harmful synthetic chemical, pesticides, and fertilizer used in non-organic farming have on the environment, polluting local waterways and diminishing soil health. More than all this, farmers markets can be a fun weekend outing. Find your local farmers market (and perhaps bike there!) and spend the day perusing the stalls of fresh produce and local food vendors. Spending the day at the farmers market really makes you enjoy every aspect of your food, not only did you enjoy cooking it and eating it, but you enjoyed the process of buying it.

So here’s a link to the LA times listing of LA area farmers markets, I’ve only been to the Santa Monica farmers market but I intend on going to as many as I can while I live in LA! Check it out:

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-farmersmarketlist,1,5715921.htmlstory

Whole Foods

Beware that not everything at Whole Foods is the sustainable choice, getting a bundle of organic asparagus grown in Argentina is not entirely sustainable. Just because an item has an organic label doesn’t mean that it is free of environmental costs. Thus I would caution when shopping at organic friendly stores like Whole Foods, still be a smart shopper, make sure you know where your food is coming from and remember the tenants of sustainable cooking and eating: local, seasonal, organic, minimal packaging and processing.

Check out Whole Foods guide to all things organic here: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/values/organic.php

Your Backyard!

There’s no less sustainable way of cooking and eating than using produce from your own garden. By cultivating your own fruits and veggies your food is guaranteed fresh, as local as you can get, seasonal and free of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Home grown vegetable emphasize quality over quantity, and you can truly enjoy your food. You can’t imagine how thrilling it is when you harvest your garden and enjoy all your hard work in a delicious garden fresh meal! Compost your food scraps and green and brown waste and apply it to your plants to fertilize your garden without the use of harmful synthetic chemicals.

I don’t have the greenest thumb in the world, thus I’m leaving the gardening advice to the experts. Check out these helpful and informative websites on starting your own garden:

http://journeytoforever.org/garden_sqft.html

http://kitchengardeners.org/

http://www.helpfulgardener.com/vegetable/2003/vegetable.html

Tips on navigating your traditional supermarket:

To make the best choices when meandering around supermarket with your empty cart ready to be filled, I’ve assembled some basic tips here from my extensive grocery store experience. Always keep in mind the tenants of sustainable eating described in the previous chapter/post: fresh, local, organic, in season, less processing/less packaging the better, minimal meat/animal products and you’re ready to tackle the sustainable living proving grounds that is the supermarket.

- Navigate the outside edges of the store first. The outside edge is where all the good stuff is anyways: Think about it, the produce section, bread, etc, meat and dairy sections are always around the edges of the store. This technique minimizes the purchase of highly processed and packaged food that you always find in the middle aisles of the store- this would be your pop tarts your fun size chip bags, your soda, your frozen pizzas, etc.

-Take your time in the produce aisle and fill up your cart with delicious fruits and veggies. Look at labels- where are the fruits and veggies from? Chile? Argentina? Try and stick to local California produce, this way you are also buying fresh and most likely seasonal, while reducing the transportation impact on the environment.

-Be a smart shopper, read labels and ingredient lists. If you’re shopping in the organic aisle do your homework and be informed on what the organic label actually entails and buy accordingly.

SUSTAINABILITY: One Bite at a Time, Part II

The Meat Question: Carnivore? Moderate Meat Eater? Vegetarian? Vegan?...confused? let me break it down for you.

The Facts:

The amount of US Grain fed to animals: 70%

Pounds of corn and soy to produce just 1lb. of pork: 7 lbs.

Water needed to produce 1 lb. of wheat: 14 gallons

Water needed to produce 1 lb. of meat: 441 gallons

Of all water used for all purposes in the United States more than ½ goes to livestock production

Now that you have some of the facts about meat production in the United States it is easy to see that the amount of water, energy, and grain used to produce livestock to provide for meat-heavy diets is by far greater than that which is required to subsist on a vegetarian diet. The meat-heavy diet that has come to define the American dinner table is harmful to the planet in its fossil fuel dependence, pollution, use of land, water, and grain, contribution to global warming. A meat-moderate diet or vegetarian/vegan diet is better for you as well as the environment. Eliminating the high fat content of corn fed beef in one’s diet can decrease the risk for obesity and diseases like diabetes and heart disease.

My key word in regards to diet is moderation. You can enjoy the occasional meat item and still lead a more sustainable life. The bulk of a person’s diet should focus on fruits veggies and grains and minimal meat and animal products. If you do eat meat, eat grass fed, pasture raised meat and animal products like milk and cheese and eggs. Make wiser choices regarding what meat to eat; eat less beef, more poultry, and try to phase out meat consumption to twice or three times a week, and then work your way down to a vegetarian or as close to that as you can. I started my own personal sustainable eating journey indulging in meat twice or three times a week, and after a week or so of adjustment I found it relatively painless (and as a matter of fact , entirely enjoyable) to reduce my meat consumption to ZERO! Just try it; it’s not all that impossible I promise. And remember my motto; moderation. You can enjoy meat and other big ticket unsustainable food items, just do so sparingly!

Less is More: Processing and Packaging

When it comes to both processing and packaging in regards to food, less is most definitely more. Processing entails cooking, freezing, preserving, canning, etc. food and requires much more energy and fossil fuel waste and thus a greater negative environmental impact than if you were to pluck an apple off a tree and bite into it. Packaging often goes hand in hand with processing food. When food is transported all over the country (and world too!) to get to your cupboard, it is stored in cardboard boxes and plastic containers and bags. This packaging represents a lot of unnecessary waste that ends up in a landfill somewhere when we indulge in Costco packages of fun-sized snacks and vacuum-packed veggies. Processing and packaging are symbols of the industrial food complex and its unsustainable practices. Eliminate the negative environmental impact of the industrial food complex by reducing your consumption of pre-processed and packaged foods, with a focus on fresh and local food avoiding the two p’s is easy!

SUSTAINABILITY: One Bite at a Time

Introduction:

Sustainability in the kitchen should not be a practice that is only reserved for the radical environmentalist or vegan or health nut. Sustainable practices in the kitchen and at the dinner table are completely doable for the average American family. Sustainable changes don’t have to be complicated or expensive or radical, its merely an emphasis on simplifying the industrialized, commercialized food industry down to what food was intended to be, nutritious (and delicious too!). With a focus on locally grown, seasonal, and organic produce as well as meat-minimal diet and downsizing the consumption of processed and packaged food, the American family can nourish their bodies while doing their part to prevent further degradation of the environment. Food, something so simple and basic has become so complex and in recent years that a guide is necessary to help the average person navigate through the industrialized and commercialized food industry and make sustainable decisions. Food has become less about nutrition, and more about new products fueling the industrial food production complex. This guide is intended to refocus the average persons’ diet and practices/behavior in the kitchen on sustainable nutrition by providing tips and techniques on what to buy, where to buy it and how to cook it all up into delicious and nutritious meal, achieving sustainability one bite at a time.

WHAT TO EAT? (when eating/cooking sustainably)

Organic Produce-

What exactly does “organic mean”? We see it everywhere, on fruit labels, on signs of your local supermarket, at Farmer’s Markets, but it’s important to know what organic food/produce actually means. Food grown according to organic principles is free harmful herbicides and pesticides. Organic farmers rely on healthy, vibrant, and live soils to grow their crops in rather than synthetic chemicals, fertilizers and pesticides. Natural soil is replete with microbiotic organisms that can exist in harmony with plants. Organic farmers utilize, maintain and manage these organisms to promote their crop growth rather than destroy the natural soil with toxic chemicals and be forced to supply fertilizers. Organic farms do not leach harmful chemicals into groundwater or pollute waterways with runoff of toxic chemicals, fertilizers, and topsoil/sedimentation. They also do not rely on chemical inputs like fertilizer and pesticides that are derived from petroleum, and have a significant environmental cost due to not only their application but production as well.

Organically cultivated produce is not only better for the environment; it is generally a better product than traditionally cultivated produce. By growing in a synthetic pesticide/fertilizer free, live soil where organic matter and microbial activity create nutrients and minerals that are free to be absorbed into your food. Thus organically grown produce is healthier and more nutritious than “synthetically fed” traditionally grown produce and are free of any toxic residue. Not only are the organic produce healthier/more nutritious, they are often much more flavorful and tasty.

Fresh local seasonal produce-

Pretty self explanatory right? Local produce from local growers and farmers from within or surrounding your community, by buying locally you are also most likely buying seasonally. Buy buying seasonal produce, you reduce the waste associated with growing nonseasonal produce in heated greenhouses, or packaging and freezing nonseasonals, and also most nonseasonal produce must be shipped long distances to get to you, as in Grapes from Chile in the middle of … or bananas from Mexico year round. There is a massive environmental cost associated with the shipping and refrigeration of these nonseasonal and nonlocal produce from pollution and burning of fossil fuels, packaging. This environmental cost can easily be eliminated by buying local seasonal produce from community farmers. Not only does buying locally help the environment, it also helps your community by supporting small local farmers who struggle to make ends meet and who are overwhelmed by huge monoculture factory farms. Along with the benefit to the community, local produce gets to you faster and fresher- produce loses some of its nutrition the longer it sits on a shelf- thus local food tastes better and is nutritionally better for you.

Here's a link to Southland Farmers Market Assos. Guide to Seasonal Produce, check it out:

http://www.sfma.net/consumer/inseason.shtml#mayaugust

Sustainable Fisheries:

Here is a link to Seafood Watch pocket guide to help you make wise choices when eating fish.

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/download.aspx

Many fisheries are being fished irresponsibly and depleted almost to the point of no return. Avoid these unsustainable fisheries and instead choose fish that is either fished or farmed responsibly and sustainably. It is important to help maintain the health of the ocean and ocean species as well as land in our eating habits.

Soon to come:

The Meat Question: Carnivore? Vegetarian/vegan? or Moderate Meat-eater?

Packaging and Processing

Where to buy food when eating/cooking sustainably/how to shop!

Sustainable Eating Manual/Cookbook Project: Progress Report

As of now in the process of creating a Sustainable Eating Guide and Cookbook I am in a research phase, I’m reading articles and reviewing literature about sustainable practices in the kitchen, enjoying Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma and attempting to practice what I will by the end of this quarter be preaching in my cookbook. I’m a week and a half into eating vegetarian and still going strong, at first I had a few slip ups, stuff like absentmindedly asking for bacon in my weekly Saturday brunch omelet or eating an entire tamale before realizing “crap! That had chicken in it didn’t it?” These absent minded unconscious meat-mistakes eventually disappeared as I got the whole vegetarian idea into my head and I got into a “meatless routine” I don’t even really have to think about avoiding meat. In Granted I occasionally miss my lunchtime turkey sandwiches and my weekend bacon splurge. While I will include vegetarian/vegan recipes in my cookbook, it will not be exclusively vegetarian I will emphasize meat in moderation into some of my recipes. . Unfortunately I do not have a kitchen in my 11x13 foot dorm room, so I am counting the days to the next weekend I go home and actually have an oven and a stove to try out all my potential recipes that I may be including in my sustainable cook-blog.

My approach to sustainable eating/cooking will focus on this word “moderation.” Allowing yourself to enjoy some of those big ticket items like meat and the occasional processed food in moderation, while the bulk of a person’s diet should consist of self prepared, organic or locally grown (or even better home grown!) food. My cookbook does not aim for Radical Simplicity at mealtimes; its goal is to provide a feasible, everyday guide to making more sustainable meal choices. Food, nourishment, something that should be so simple, has gotten so confusing and complicated in the last century. My Cookbook/guide will help the average person navigate the rows of their local grocery store, decode the mystique of Whole Foods and local and organic foods, and offer up satisfying recipes that employ this sustainable knowledge, so that they can eat their way to a more sustainable lifestyle.

Here’s a taste of what to expect in the coming weeks of my Sustainability Project:

My (rough) Outline of the yet-untitled Sustainable Eating Guide and Cookbook:

· General Introduction to the rationale of eating/cooking sustainably and an outline of the basic tenants of Sustainable cooking- aka why you should read my book and eat your way to a more sustainable life!

· Where to get your food??

o The farmers market- local and organic

o Navigating the “regular grocery store” for more sustainable options

o Whole Foods

o Your own backyard garden!

· What to eat?

o Vegetarian/vegan options

o seasonal fruits and veggies

o minimizing processing and packaging

o sustainable fisheries

· How to cook all these sustainable ingredients into delicious and nutritious meals!

o Recipes: appetizers, main courses, desserts, Yum!

· Conclusion: how eating and cooking more sustainably can be incorporated into an overall more sustainable and environmentally conscious lifestyle

Radical Simplicity Response

1. I would love to be able to embrace a Tao-ist perspective and say “I live day to day and enjoy my life in the present rather than dreaming of the future”, but that would be an outright lie. I love playing the “imagine my life 10 years in the future” game! (For all my ladies out there who played M.A.S.H. all throughout elementary school, you know what I’m talking about, right?) In my imaginary future I am 28 years old, married, perhaps with a family on the horizon, preferably two kids, a boy and a girl, a puppy in the backyard. In my ideal world I would already be a published author with a bestselling series of novels on the shelves of Barnes and Noble’s, so that I can live comfortably on an elementary school teacher salary, and run a Bed and Breakfast during the summer time for travelers to the Washington/Oregon area. My bed and breakfast would emphasize fresh veggies from my garden, eggs in the morning from the hens in coop in the backyard, in season fruits from local growers in the daily meals for the guests. My efforts at sustainability in running my B&B would be written up in countless newspapers and Sunset magazine. Whoa…I got a little bit carried away with this imagining exercise, but this is the ideal of ideals of my future, obviously this is subject to change. After I read Jim Merkel’s Radical Simplicity, I reconsidered my view of my 28 year old self. At second glance my 10 year plan seems very shallow and focused on material possessions as in a large mansion to house my family and bed and breakfast and along with that a LOT of money. When I get down to the basics of what I want, no need, in my life ten years down the road all I need is happiness and love, as cheesy as that sounds. I don’t need a best-selling novel or a disposable income to be happy. What Radical Simplicity made me realize is that you can achieve a fulfilling life with only minimal possessions when you appreciate the earth and the people around you. Merkel references in the chapter about Your Money or Your Life the idea of getting off the treadmill of this capitalistic society before you are past the point of no return and all you value is material. I am getting off this treadmill before my material possessions come to define my life. Radical Simplicity has made me refocus my life goals into a less materialistic realm; I want to incorporate sustainable practices, recognition of the immaterial happiness of life and appreciation of nature into my lifestyle no matter where my future will lead me.

2. When I first picked up Jim Merkel’s book, I’m not going to lie, I was a little bit worried. First of all, I hate feeling guilty, and I knew that with all this talk of sustainability I was inevitably going to feel some (more like a lot of) guilt over my unsustainable lifestyle. Secondly, the term radical always sounds intimidating. When I first purchased the book, I flipped it open to get a sense of what Radical Simplicity is all about, and what page do I casually flip to? None other than the chapter on communing with nature through nature walks and vision quests. I’m down with composting and recycling and saving woodland creatures and all that jazz, but vision quests? Fasting to the point where you hallucinate? Sweat lodges? (Didn’t part of a cult just die in a sweat lodge?) Not really my style. I couldn’t help but think, “Don’t drink the Kool-aid, Katie!” All this sounded cultish and all too radical to me­. Was this book going to be just the preaching of what I like to call “The Cult of REI”? I don’t have anything against REI, I know some fantastic people that are members of “The Cult of REI” but every time I go into that store, I feel like I’m intruding on a secret meeting of backpackers, climbers, hikers all donning their expensive eco-friendly gear, and I am an infidel, wearing my cheap Philippine made shirt. It is probably just my extremely guilty conscience kicking in that I have such a reaction to REI-ers and Jim Merkel alike. Needless to say, my first impression of Merkel’s Radical Simplicity was not so good, but thankfully my first impression was, as usual, completely off base. After reading the entirety of Radical Simplicity, I realized Merkel wasn’t a member of some wacky cult; he was just an average guy who took charge of his guilty conscience and drastically altered his lifestyle. And by drastically, I mean DRASTICALLY. This was no half-assed sustainability project; Merkel's change was a radical life choice. The extent to which he reduced his ecological footprint is extreme, first to 3 acres and then 2 acres, is in all meanings of the word radical. But does he go too far? I would say no. Sure his changes are extreme, but he was still able to lead a happy, healthy life. For me to change my lifestyle that drastically at this point in my life, I would personally not be happy, and it would be too extreme. But Merkel does not preach an exact replica of his path to radical simplicity for everyone; it can be altered to the extent to which you are willing to change. The three Wiseacre scenarios provide alternative visions of a sustainable lifestyle that are not quite as radical as Merkel and thus disproved my initial expectation of a preachy environmental extremist cult member.

Ecological Footprint Response

The first of three tools in Jim Merkel’s proposed path toward global living in Radical Simplicity is ecological foot printing. Ecological foot printing is an important process because it is a primary measure of the degree to which your life is sustainable, a marker in your path toward global living. The first of the four stages of sustainable living is unconscious unsustainability; ecological foot printing has the power to bring people out of this first stage and on to the next, conscious unsustainability. Awareness is the first step toward change, and this exercise has certainly made me more aware of my massive impact on the environment and has motivated me to make changes to my unsustainable lifestyle.

After a lot of digging for information, a few calls to my personal financial managers (aka my parents) I was able to fill out the majority of the details of the charts and grids to calculate my ecological footprint. My monthly footprint was surprisingly more than I thought it would be, I like to consider myself less consumptive and better eating habits than the average American, I gave up beef 8 years ago, I tend not to eat a lot of meat, primarily poultry, and I’m all about fruits and veggies, but my footprint was still 20,005.5 sq. feet. That amount of land is just short of the 4.7 acres Merkel suggest that the global population can maintain if consuming 50% of the lands bioproductivity. I severely underestimated my eating habits and the amount of land needed to supply for them. I am so far removed from what I consume on a day to day basis. Plates of food get set out on the hot plates and I eat them, I do not have control of whether my food is organic or locally grown, unless I were to move out to an apartment with a kitchen and prepare my own meals, but as a first year college student that is improbable.

Another major contribution to the massive size of my ecological footprint is my Monthly Goods total. The large amount of money I spend on my university education is a significant impact of 38,320 sq. feet. I was extremely surprised by this, how does my learning take up 7.9 acres? I did not consider my education to be a significant negative impact on the environment; I would like to think that my parents (and I) are spending 30,000 dollars a year so I can make the world better place, not the contrary. This proves that every single one of our practices, even education, a practice that is generally considered in a positive light, has a ecological footprint. Another significant footprint within my monthly goods is the amount of money I spend on health insurance.. Health insurance is something that I would be wary of giving up, although I am in good health as of now, it is nice to know that I am protected in case of the odd medical visit. As a college student, I live in an 11 by 13 foot dorm room with three roommates, thus my housing footprint is relatively minimal, just under an acre, 4320 square feet. However as happy as I am that I have a minimal housing footprint, I could not foresee myself living in what is essentially a cube with a bed and a desk for the rest of my life, but I also do not want to perpetuate my large ecological footprint. Another consequence of living in a dorm is that my transportation is limited to the odd bus trip to Santa Monica or the rare trip back home to San Diego, altogether not too much (relatively speaking, though still room for improvement) 2,340 square feet.

I was alarmed at how large my ecological footprint was, although I have a smaller impact than the average American, my 17.8 acre footprint as opposed to the average American’s 24.2 acre print. I do not feel extremely wasteful or consumptive, proving that much of my impact is unconscious. As a student I am removed from the food I eat, I do not pay an electricity or water bill for my dorm, my parents pay for my education as well as my monthly spending. Once I consume something I don’t see it ever again. I don’t pay my bills, fiscally, as well as environmentally speaking. I would have to radically cut down on every aspect of my life to achieve the goal of 4.7 acre footprint. I cannot make that drastic change at this point in my life, but I am fully prepared to make many smaller changes to decrease my impact immediately, including following vegetarian diet and altogether decreasing my food intake and waste, decreasing my car travel from San Diego to LA either by taking trains or carpooling, and spending less on things like entertainment , there is so many opportunities for entertainment that are free and I should focus on enjoying them, nature specifically. Long term I would like to change my lifestyle to more sustainable and ecologically conscious practices, possibly incorporating the more drastic changes Merkel advocates, like relying on my own garden produce and on biking for transportation. It is overwhelming to think that I could make enough changes to lower my footprint by 13 acres, but I will lower my footprint one step at a time and gradually be able to lead a simple life.

Personal Trash Inventory

Before beginning my personal trash inventory I knew that as a member of an extraordinarily wasteful society, I would also be subject to the influence of a wasteful culture. I knew my lifestyle had its associated trash output, but it wasn’t an area of concern or even awareness prior to my week long trash inventory. I was as happy as a clam putting the blame on everyone else for the filling of landfills, despite my inner knowledge of my personal wastefulness. I assuaged any nagging fears about my negative impact on the environment by telling myself, that there are people that waste way more than I do, my contribution pales in comparison to this other unidentifiable group of horribly indulgent wasteful people I imagined to make me look like mother nature herself, I mean I have a composter for Pete’s sake, how wasteful can I be? (granted it is an empty composter).
My relative ignorance of my personal wastefulness is due to the fact that trash has become an almost unconscious aspect of my life, I don’t even have to walk five feet and I encounter a trash can on campus beckoning for my water bottle. In my dorm, I simply drop my trash down a chute and it magically disappears forever. My view of trash is so skewed, once an item is in the trash, that item almost doesn’t exist anymore. We throw things away, and consider them gone for good, but there is no real “away” for that trash to disappear to. My ignorance to my wasteful behavior can come down to the saying “out of sight out of mind”, my trash doesn’t stay in my tiny dorm room; it just disappears down the chute and out of my thoughts forever. At home the only time our trash is even really considered is Wednesday morning, abruptly awoken by the din of the trash collector, when someone sprints out to put the trash bins on our curb. God forbid if we were to forget and we would be stuck with our trash for another WEEK!? When in reality that week of trash in our side yard is a whole lot shorter than how long that trash will be on this earth sitting in a landfill. To say the least, my perspective has changed after seeing the sheer volume of my trash output during the completion of my trash inventory.
As to the content of my trash, I was blown away by how much paper products I use on a day to day basis. Paper towels, toilet paper, napkins, tissues, and papers for printing and assignments accounts for an extremely large percentage of my trash. I was also struck by how much of my waste from organic food waste, napkins, utensils, packaging, take out boxes and cups, was in some way related to food. The week in which I inventoried my trash was an extraordinarily busy one, so busy that I didn’t eat regular meals in the dining halls. I relied mainly upon take out from the quick services restaurants at UCLA, like Bruin Café, in comparison to eating at the dining hall where all I would throw away would be napkins and the odd uneaten piece of food, whereas at Bruin Cafe, I throw away a paper cup, lid, straw, takeout box, plastic bag, fork, and napkins. All in all, A LOT more trash than if I were to eat at the dining hall or prepare my own food. To reduce my waste of food related items, I am focusing on planning my meals so I don’t have to rely on Bruin Café and packaging heavy food items. I can also easily reduce my use of paper products, by using my cloth towel to dry my hands instead of the mass amounts of paper towels I used to use, and limit myself to only two napkins per meal, so as to prevent the mountain of crumpled up napkins that always somehow end up on my plate after dinner. I can also use my refillable water container instead of taking the wasteful route and relying on plastic bottles. These changes along with others are relatively simple and can greatly reduce my trash output.