Photo Credit: Flickr/Ron Dressel Photography
If you have been considering the parts of the No Impact Challenge that I have talked about so far, you may be realizing that this is a big commitment and a lot to think about. This part of the challenge is no different: Food! I venture to guess that like me, many of you lead busy lives and food is sometimes an afterthought. But let me tell you, conquering this challenge may be one of the most rewarding not only for the environment, but also for your health and your happiness.
Our society has grown accustomed to eating low-quality and/or low-nutrient food because it is more convenient to eat processed or fast food. Most of this type of food requires intensive resources to produce, preserve, package and transport to our mouths. And the nutritional value of that food is poor to nil. Somewhere along the line, we lost sight of eating for fueling our bodies and began to value convenience over nutrition. The No Impact Challenge is as much about taking care of ourselves as it is about taking care of the planet. How can we change our relationship with our food and be better stewards of the environment and our own bodies?
Since we have already committed to not producing garbage, you may not have realized but we have also committed to stop buying fast food. There are not many places that serve fast food that don’t also serve it with the garbage that you have agreed not to generate. Not only does fast food produce ubiquitous amounts of garbage, but many of the practices to produce the food is degrading to the environment by using too many resources such as water and land. Plus, it’s not very good for you.
Another garbage-maker is packaged food. Think about all of the boxes, bags, and cans on the inner isles of the grocery store, where all of the processed food lives. Are there ways you can avoid those foods and use fresh items instead? Processed items are usually not the height of nutrition so best to avoid anyway. Look closer though at your grocery cart and consider all of all the packaging for fresh or perishable items: plastic wrap, plastic tubs, Styrofoam trays, plastic bags. In the conventional grocery store, they are everywhere. Try to buy the items with the least amount of packaging as possible. Bring your own produce bags for fruits and veggies, and bring containers to buy bulk foods in.
Once you get used to shopping this way, try expanding your challenge to the 250 rule: only buy food that was grown within 250 miles of your home. Start by figuring out just what that means. For me living in Seattle, this means I should try to get food grown no further south than Salem, OR and no further east than Spokane. It also means that if I follow this rule, I may never eat an avocado again and I don’t think I could do that! But it does make me aware that I should buy the California avocado instead of the one grown in Chile and trucked up here.
One way to make this task easier is to shop at farmer’s markets. However, in Seattle at this time of year, farmer’s markets are scarce. Most of the neighborhood markets are open May through October. We have a couple year round markets, but they are not convenient for many people to get to and you still have to be careful to ask the vendors where the food comes from.
So now what? We have eliminated almost everything that we are accustomed to eating! What is left behind is local and seasonal ingredients that you can use to make your own food. From scratch. Yes, it will take some planning and investigating, but it will also be amazing! You control the ingredients and therefore the nutritional content of what you are cooking. Remember that all that stuff on the grocery shelves have salt, sugar, fat and chemicals used to preserve them for longer life in the store. I just made a mushroom stock from scratch for our Thanksgiving preparations that only has 30 calories for a whole cup and the sodium content of that serving is under 200 mg. A similar prepared product would perhaps have a high fat content, higher calories or much higher sodium in order for it to sit unrefrigerated for up to a year. And I will tell you, the homemade stock was delicious!
Since food may be one of the toughest parts of the challenge, I plan to write again about the subject a few times before we begin. Let me know if you have specific questions you would like addressed, or if you have any great ideas or recipes to share that will help us with the No Impact Challenge and help us be healthier and happier, and nicer to the earth.
Eco Home Consultations provides green living consultation services to households in the Seattle area. Learn more at www.ecohomeconsults.com or email questions about this blog or other green living issues to Melissa@ecohomeconsults.com.
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