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Live green by eating sustainably
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When it comes to living green, the most significant step you can take is also the most basic: know what you are eating, and even more importantly, the impact your food choices have on your health and the environment.
In her book Harvest for Hope Jane Goodall writes that “There has never been a time when it is more crucial for us to carefully consider where our food is coming from and how it is grown, raised and harvested.”
Currently much of the world's food is produced using intensive methods, with farms being operated like factories to maximize profit and efficiency. But this "factory farming" all too often results in massive pollution, unspeakable cruelty to animals, and a food supply tainted by pesticides and livestock stricken by disease and overuse of antibiotics. We are poisoning our land and ourselves through this method of producing food.
And factory farming is not even a good solution to world hunger. According to the United Nation’s 2005 Millennium Report, across the world forests are disappearing, fisheries are being depleted and agricultural land is being degraded—losing its capacity to grow food—at an alarming rate, which is directly affecting our planet’s ability to feed its burgeoning population. Sustainability may be the only option to ensure our survival.
Fortunately there are many tools available to help consumers make the choices that support small farmers and sustainable farming. Sustainable Table is a website designed to give consumers information about how and where their food is grown, to support more humane, community-oriented and sustainable farming methods. It features an Eat Well guide, which is a directory to local sources of sustainably-raised meat, poultry, dairy and eggs from farms, stores, restaurants, and even bed & breakfasts.
When you buy fresh produce from a farmer’s market, or use the tags in your grocery store’s produce and meat sections to select organic foods from local farms and ranches, you are making a choice for healthier food and a more sustainable planet. It's a way to use your dollars to vote for a better future for yourself and generations to come.
Here is a short video that illustrates some of the issues associated with factory farms:
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- Shop for locally grown and manufactured food at farmers' markets and your local grocery store.
- Replace some of your incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lights (CFLs).
- Skip the clothes dryer and hang dry your laundry, either on an outdoor clothesline or an indoor drying rack.
- Bring reusable bags to the market. And shop the bulk food aisle to cut down on unnecessary packaging.
- Take your own mug to your favorite coffee shop for coffee to go (Some shops even give you a discount for this).
