Our food choices make a difference
It may surprise you to learn that what we choose to eat has worldwide implications. But the good news is that earth-friendly food choices also tend to be the healthiest. It's just one more example of God's "abundant life" being more rewarding than our pop culture's idea of "the good life!"
Reduce meat consumption
A major study showing how personal change can affect global warming is in the November 2006 390-page report of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), entitled Livestock’s Long Shadow. It states that animal-based agriculture causes approximately 18% of greenhouse gas emissions, which lead to global warming - an amount greater than that caused by all forms of transportation on the planet combined.
American meat eaters are responsible for 1.5 more tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per person than vegetarians every year. Choose to eat less meat, and you're choosing to prevent global warming. For more info...
Surprisingly, reducing meat consumption is also the best way to conserve water (since so much water is required to grow the crops to raise the animals) and preserve land. It also conserves rainforest since rainforest is often cleared to raise our burgers (known as the "hamburger connection"). So many more people could be fed from the same amount of land, water, and other resources if we fed grain to people, not animals!
Here's more information from The Center for a New American Dream: Biodiversity to Go: The Hidden Costs of Beef Consumption
Select seafood carefully
Here are some resources for choosing seafood wisely so this resource will be available for future generations.
- The National Audubon Society - recommendations for sustainable seafood choices based on the fishery management, bycatch concerns, and habitat concerns. For example, shrimp - both wild caught and farmed - is an especially poor choice.
- Environmental Defense's Seafood Selector
- Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch
- Catch of the Day: Choosing Seafood for Healthier Oceans from the Worldwatch Institute
Buy local or join a CSA
Buying locally produced food reduces the high environmental costs of transporting food long distances. And food that spends less time on the road tastes better, too. Buying local food is an important way to support family farms and keep money in rural communities.
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is the mutually beneficial arrangement whereby farmers and consumers cooperate so that food grown on small farms can be distributed efficiently for local consumption. The consumer buys a farm membership at the beginning of the season in return for a box of fresh, organically grown vegetables each week during the growing season. This program benefits both the farmer and the consumer: the farmer receives money before the start of the season when it is most needed to buy seed and supplies, and the consumer gets an assortment of fresh vegetables grown using environmentally responsible methods. Everyone in a CSA benefits from the lowered costs of packaging, marketing and advertising.
Here are some resources:
- For the Capital Region of NYS: The 100-Mile Diet Challenge for the Capital Region
- Farm and Food Project Directory
As local as you can get - right in your own backyard!
You can grow vegetables at home, and provide the most nutritious food possible for your family - "home"-grown produce! In addition to providing habitat for wildlife, this is the best stewardship of your land.
Here's some interesting faith-based articles on Community Supported Agriculture from Creation Care magazine, a publication of the Evangelical Environmental Network.
Choose organic whenever possible
Organic farming respects the health of the soil, thus helping preserve precious topsoil for future generations. It also prevents further contamination of our soil, air, and water with pesticides, herbicides and all the other "'cides."
