Please welcome today’s guest poster, Chris. Chris is a lecturer at a university in Australia and blogs at A Free Man.
I am a committed carnivore, some might say a fanatical one, so this is going to be a difficult post for me to write. I’ve been thinking a lot about food lately and I’m slowly coming around to the conclusion that we’re doing not only ourselves a lot of harm with our gluttonous Western diets, but the planet as well.
I’m behind the curve on this one, as there has been a fair bit in the mainstream press and the chatterbox commentators about cow farts and global warming. As is typically the case with the TV ‘news’ personalities, a lot of this talk is the oversimplification peddled by ill informed idiots misunderstanding complex science. Let’s start fresh and leave this particular story aside. In fact, let’s leave climate change in general aside. I’m a geneticist, not a climatologist, and I don’t know enough about the topic to get into it in any real critical analysis.
But I think that we can probably all agree on some simple things. We can probably all agree that we need to be careful in terms of water use - particularly if you live in Australia, for example, or the Western United States. I think we can all probably agree that energy conservation is a good idea, that pesticide and fertilizer use should be minimized as should the amount of waste we generate as a species.
Please welcome today’s guest poster, the lovely Dianne of Dianne’s Dishes. Dianne is an expert not only on cooking delicious meals, but doing so in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner.
No matter where you look these days you can find someone talking about eatinglocally. Some eat local all year round, and I think that’s easier to do when you live in areas of California and Florida that have local produce year round, and others just focus on eating local as much as possible. I fall in the latter category and focus on eating local whenever the opportunity is available.
There are several ways to eat local and it’s especially easy during the summer months! You can eat as local as you can possibly get and grow your own, you can visit a local farmer’s market or you can join a CSA. You can also do a little research and find out what is actually produced in your area and try to buy exclusively from them whenever possible. You can find a local dairy farm or a local mill, etc. You’d be amazed what might be around that you don’t know about before! But what are the real benefits?
We’ve come to romanticize the idea of going “back to the old ways,” of producing food. But the old ways never existed the way we seem to think they do. This talk is on the longer side, but I think it’s worth every minute. When the answers we’re working for aren’t the right answers, we put ourselves in a dangerous spot. We stop pursuing appropriate solutions.
I recently ate sushi for the first time, and I love it. (Kind of weird since I’m not a fan of fish in general, but apparently if it’s raw and wrapped in seaweed and rice, I’m on board.) Sushi restaurants are becoming really popular, but the problem is that not everything served in sushi restaurants are eco-friendly.
The five most popular sushi items — salmon, hamachi, shrimp, uangi and tuna — aren’t always ocean friendly. But some chefs in San Francisco have found some creative ways to serve sushi responsibly. For example, they’ll use farmed arctic char instead of salmon, or Canadian black cod in place of eel.
It may not be the same as your favorite roll, but choosing ocean-friendly sushi could help prevent fisheries from crashing in the wake of sushi’s popularity. Besides, what’s the use in eating sushi if you’re not willing to try something new?
Howling Hill sent me a great link to instructions for making your own reusable cloth snack bags. The instructions are thorough with pictures showing the steps. They’re so cute and easy! Make them out of scrap fabric and you’ll save money and cut down on your plastic waste.
I have tried almost every form of “milk” out there. Goat milk, soy milk, oat milk, rice milk, almond milk - you name it, I’ve probably tried it. My favorite, so far, is hemp milk. Heating up a little Living Harvest Chocolate Hemp Milk in the microwave makes for the most absurdly decadent hot chocolate.
I have often said that if there were a pill I could take to get all my nutritional needs met without actually having to eat, I totally would. It’s not that I don’t enjoy good food, it’s just that I find the whole constant process of shopping for (or otherwise procuring), preparing, eating, and cleaning up after food to be tedious.
I also have a habit of getting so caught up in my writing that I forget to eat. When I break out of my writing haze, I’m so hungry I could eat my arm. And since we don’t make a habit of keeping a lot of prepackaged food around, I end up stuffing my face with weird foods instead of taking the time to make an actual meal. Half a can of olives, an amount of pickles that puts me over my recommended salt intake for the next decade, hunks of cheese - these things in moderation aren’t bad, but they don’t add up to a balanced meal or snack.
I’m not dieting, and I’m not kidding myself into thinking that meal replacement shakes are the healthiest way to go all the time, but having a quick meal solution on hand, keeps me from eating weird stuff, and is a nice, calorie-controlled option.
Problem? Many meal replacement shakes are full of High Fructose Corn Syrup as well as many other icky ingredients.
But I’ve found two options that are pretty darn good. Read more…
I’ve always loved gummy candies. In trying to eat healthy, cutting out little treats like spice drops and sour fruit candies is the hardest thing for me. But the last time I considered buying a few sour chewy candies from the bulk section of the grocery store, I was beyond appalled by the ingredients. In addition to High Fructose Corn Syrup, and Palm Oil, they contained Talc! Gross!
The last time I was at Target, there was a sale on Sharkies and I decided to give the Citrus Sour Power flavor a try, even though they’re branded as a kids snack. Read more…
I carry a titanium backpacking spork around in my purse. I know that sounds kind of weird, but it saves me from using disposable utensils when I eat out, and it’s so light, I never even notice that I’m carrying it.
Before the Industrail Revolution it was common for guests to be expected to bring their own utensils with them when invited to dine, because utensils were expensive, labor intensive items, and most people didn’t own extra sets. Now, when it’s possible to buy a set of 1,000 plastic utensils for under $20, people don’t even think about bringing their own.
But think of the plastic waste that can be saved by slipping a fork from home in your purse on the way out the door. You don’t need anything fancy. Grab one from your kitchen drawer, or if you’re worried about loosing a piece of a set, pick up a few spare utensils the next time you hit a discount store, thrift shop, or yard sale. It’s simple a simple way to cut down waste, and it’s always nicer to eat with real utensils anyway.
