I was recently asked to write up a piece for my local paper on 5 ways to lower your carbon footprint. Instead of the usual boring “insulate your house” kind of thing that puts everyone to sleep, I reached for more every day items in which we can cut back on our damage to the planet. Check my piece out by clicking here.
But what about our Carbon FOODprint? Our food system spews as much carbon into the atmosphere as our cars do. How can we change what’s on our plate and help make the world a better place?
Eat less meat and more food close by to cut your carbon footprint
When we eat the Standard American Diet (aka SAD), we are really eating oil. It takes 10 calories of fossil fuel to create one calorie of food. Considering we are burning 6 barrels of oil for every one we discover, this way of food production is going to have to change and soon. As a country, we guzzle 20 million barrels of oil a day, this party will not last forever. This is why I am focusing much of my energy to the Transition Towns movement and to Transition Westchester.
By now everyone has heard the statistic that our food travels on an average of 1500-2000 miles from the farm to our fork. At $4 and more for a gallon of gas, that is a big piece of why the price of food continues to climb.
Its not just the food miles. Our food system guzzles fossil fuels every step of the way. From farm machinery that runs on gas, fertilizers and pesticides that are made from fossil fuels, to packaging and refrigeration. This way of eating is not good for
What to do?
Eat local whenever possible. Visit LocalHarvest.org and type in your zip code to find farms, CSAs and farmer’s markets nearby.
Eat less animals, more vegetables. One way to have fun with this is to participate in Meatless Mondays or Fast Food Free Fridays.
Cook your own food from scratch! Check out all the recipes I’ve posted on this blog for inspiration.
Grow lettuce intstead of a lawn! Good for your wallet, good for the world.
Grow your own. Even if it is a simple planter on your deck, its easy to grow some food. If you’ve got a sunny front lawn, rip it up and put some raised bed in instead of grass. It will pay better dividends than any stock on Wall Street!
If you don’t have enough sun in your yard, consider joining a community garden. You’ll meet lots of great people who like to grow food and you’ll have a new appreciation for what you and your family eat. If there is no community garden nearby, start one with these helpful hints from the American Community Gardening Association.
Backyard chickens help to reduce your carbon footprint.
Another option if you don’t have enough sun to grow veggies in your yard: chickens! Backyard chickens make for great pets, delicious eggs and they devour ticks and other bugs in your yard. I intend to start chicken farming as soon as my “chicken flick” is finished. This movie will be a tool to help convince town boards to change the zoning laws for backyard chickens. My town requires 10 acres to keep chickens but just a 1/2 acre for a horse! Meanwhile the town next door allows chickens in any size backyard. I’ve met so many cool people who keep chickens thanks to my adventures with the chicken movie, more on that in an upcoming post.
What are YOU doing to decrease your carbon food print? Please share in the comments section below!
