Food

What we are doing:

• Wasting almost no food
  • most extra food from the table is eaten as left-overs. Occasionally as pet food.
  • When we do eat out, we bring take-home container and bring all we don’t eat back home to eat later.
• Eating much less meat
  • avoiding beef, and eating sheep or pig only occasionally
  • fish and birds a few times a week
  • lots of rice and beans, eggs.
  • Working to reduce our dairy consumption (milk, ice cream!).
• Consuming local, unprocessed foods
  • Aiming to buy things which require short shipping distances
    • farmer’s market for produce, local baked goods, dairy, meat.
  • Question here: when does economy of scale in food production win over cooking at home? (research to be done here…)
• Avoiding:
  • foods and products with palm oil, pesticides and heavy fertilizer use,
  • foods produced with damaging farming practices, forest destruction,  and other current sustainability challenges
• Buying foods and products with backing from orgs monitoring for good environmental practices
• Alcohol – aiming to reduce consumption a bit, targeting average of 1.25 drink/day
• Coffee – reducing consumption to ~ 8oz/day, tea the rest of the time.
• Refrigeration and freezing:
  • we already bought a smaller refrigerator (22.5 cu. ft.). Could we do with a little euro-style one? For now, aiming to cover our refrigeration needs with our solar PV.

 

 

 

Food-related things one can do immediately:

• Waste almost no food
  • view consumable nutrition and sustenance as precious – it is.
  • Save extra prepared food at home and when eating out. Use this for:
    • eating as left-overs, either as a meal or along with other meals.
    • if you can’t eat it, can your pet? Dog? Cat? Chickens?
  • Expired food
    • avoid letting food spoil or pass expiration date
    • if expired, can you eat it safely if cooked properly?
  • manage your refrigerated food so little spoils
  • Any food which can’t be consumed should be composted.
• Purchase foods made with less impact to the planet
  • Buy local, fresh foods to reduce impacts of transportation, refrigeration.
  • Buy pesticide-free foods as much as possible
  • Avoid foods and ingredients which cause environmental destruction.
    • Examples:
      • Palm Oil, Beef, Soy from companies clearing rain forests
      • Meat from factory farms
      • Fish from companies damaging fish populations
      • Food grown with pesticides which are made from petroleum and/or which affect other environments or other species of plants and animals.
• Reduce your consumption of meat to a few times a week, and smaller portions.
• Avoid foods and drinks packaged in single-use plastic.
• Minimize purchase of foods packaged in recyclable containers unless you know your local recycling is able to recycle these materials.
• Learn about recipes and types of food you can enjoy which use less energy for preparation.