Image Credit: Healing Path Magazine
With the Obama's planting an organic garden on the White House lawn and most of the country experiencing a breath of Summer weather this past weekend, the leaves of awareness about sustainable living principles like local eating, urban farming, organic gardening and general self-sufficiency are bursting forth.
Here's an article of mine that appeared earlier this year in Healing Path Magazine with some facts and benefits of being an eco-conscious eater. (Sorry for the length! Scroll down for restaurant suggestions at the end if you've only got a minute!)
...In America, our mindless food consumption is causing childhood obesity of epidemic proportions and polluting the very air, water and soil that produces it. Fortunately, it’s a habit that can be broken. Slowly but surely, people in America are waking up, smelling the preservatives and starting to eat green. Here are a couple of ways you can get started.
The Organic Option
According to the Pesticide Action Network, more than 20,000 pesticides are registered for use in the United States. About 75 percent of the chemicals (some 2.2 billion pounds annually) are used on more than 900,000 U.S. farms.
Choosing organic foods greatly reduces the amount of toxins one ingests, and organic farming practices are definitely kinder to both the land and animals involved. Unfortunately, the cost of organic foods — which can sometimes be double that of their conventional counterparts — deters some people from taking advantage of their health benefits. To start, check out the Environmental Working Group’s Shoppers Guide to Pesticides in Produce that points out which fruits and veggies carry the highest pesticide load and are the most important to buy organic. Available at www.foodnews.org.
The Vegetarian Vow
In his 2006 publication, Six Arguments for a Greener Diet: How a More Plant-Based Diet Could Save Your Health and the Environment, Michael Jacobson, co-founder of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, finds that a diet comprised of more plant-based foods and less meats and dairy can lead to extra years of healthy living while also reducing environmental damage and farm animal suffering.
“Recognizing that not everyone would or should become a total vegetarian, we suggest means of both obtaining healthier animal products and improving how animals are raised,” Jacobson writes. “Nutrition and environment-based food and farm policies could improve diets directly and indirectly.”
The book asserts that simply replacing one 3.5-ounce serving of beef, one egg, and a 1-ounce serving of cheese each day with a mix of vegetables, fruit and beans would drastically improve the quality of one’s diet and spares the need for 1.8 acres of cropland, 40 pounds of fertilizer, and 3 ounces of pesticides each year.
If you’d like to see how your current diet shapes up and what you can do to take a step in the vegetarian direction, try out the Low Carbon Calculator from Bon Appétit at www.eatlowcarbon.org or the CSPI’s own Eating Green Calculator at www.cspinet.org/EatingGreen/calculator.html.
A Lust for Local
According to a study conducted by the University of Iowa, 3.74 pounds of carbon dioxide are emitted for every mile a tractor-trailer travels to bring us our food. Think about that the next time you’re browsing the fresh strawberries in the middle of December. Even more disconcerting is the fact that the immense cost of this edible road trip is a tax write-off for big food corporations, a cost that gets passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. As Atlanta Journal-Constitution writer Chris Rosenbloom noted, this isn’t an issue that can be corrected by simply “eliminating meat or eating only organic foods. If your organic smoothie is shipped by air and freight halfway around the world, then it isn’t healthy for the environment.” The best answer? Keep it local.
Foods grown within 100 miles of where you buy and eat them have a much better chance of being fresh and less toxic because they probably came from a much smaller farm than most industrially grown meat and produce. And, thanks to the rapidly growing popularity of farmers’ markets and community supported agriculture programs (CSAs), locally grown food can be found more easily than ever. The concept of eating local apparently appeals to the food and beverage industry as well, and big names like Alice Waters, Michael Pollen and the cafeterias at Yale University and Google have started to embrace it.
If you'd love to try one or more of the planet-friendly eating styles mentioned above, but don't really fancy preparing it yourself, try one of these local restaurants and let them do the cooking for you!
Tasty Harmony: Committed to provide the community with healthy organic plant based cuisine. Most of their food is vegan and most of thier desserts are wheat free and sugarcane free. Also serving organic/biodynamic wines and beers!
130 S. Mason St. | www.tastyharmony.com
Plank: Featuring dynamic, organic menus that change with the seasons.
181 N. College Ave. | www.plankrestaurant.com
Rainbow: Specializing in vegetarian dishes as well as traditional American and international cuisine.
212 W. Laurel St. | www.rainbowfortcollins.com
Avogadro's Number: Not only the best place in town to get a tempeh burger, but also a great spot to catch some local live music. 605 S. Mason St. | www.avogadros.com/menu.php
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