Lifestyle Update: Eating local and organic foods for five days straight

Which is better for the environment and for me local or organic?  Through research, I’ve found that my question is just too simple to be answered.  The complexities involved with food production and its effects on the economy, society, and environment require my question to be rephrased—“What should I consider when purchasing my food?”  To make responsible decisions when purchasing food, one must consider:

-Where is my food coming from (amount of fossil fuels used to get it to me)

-How is my food being produced?

            -Large industry?  Local farmer?

            -Do they use sustainable production practices?

            -Do they use chemicals?

These are very broad questions and get more and more detailed based on the type of food, e.g., corn, beef, etc.  The grocery store, local farmer, or restaurant selling these foods should be asked these questions.  The answers I’d want to hear would be:

“We’re local, we don’t use chemicals, we treat our animals humanely, we respect and treat our employees well, and we enjoy what we do.“

For detailed information about sustainable food choices:

http://www.sustainabletable.org/home.php

 http://www.slowfood.com/

Through a week of research and testing my own sustainable food choices, I’ve learned quite a bit.  Simply buying organic and/or local wasn’t enough—to be truly “sustainable” I must making well-informed decisions by asking questions to various sellers (farmers and grocery stores). Over the last five days, I’ve been experimenting with purchasing organic and local foods to make lifestyle changes to reduce my carbon and ecological footprints and ease my guilt. This week was a learning experience to say the least.  While I learned about the questions I should ask, I was only able to talk to the gentleman working meat counter at Whole Foods, and no local farmers due to time constraints.  My week went something like this… 

After getting out of work on Friday, I was exhausted, recovering from a cold, and as usual, HUNGRY.  I was in no mood to go food shopping for my experimental lifestyle change, so my boyfriend and I decided to eat sushi at Red Curry in Alexandria.  It was my last non-sustainable meal for the next four days, or so I thought… (I’ll talk about this later in the blog). We ate dinner then headed to Whole Foods.  I set the following rules for myself:
1.  Buy food items typically found on my weekly shopping list
2.  The food items should be organic and locally grown

a.   If no such food items are available, the purchase of organic OR locally grown food is permitted

b.   Locally is defined as within 250 miles

c.   Organic is defined as USDA certified organic

d.   If information on the packaging or signage ask an employee

Simple enough, right? 

I was able to find all of the food items I was looking for, but I only purchased two items that was both USDA certified organic and locally grown—packaged uncured ham slices and yellow squash.  I bought beef that was locally raised, grass-fed and no hormones or antibiotics were used.  Other than those two items, everything else was pretty straightforward:

Local & Organic	Local	Organic
Yellow squash	Lettuce (hydro)	Wine (Malbec)
Ham	Gala apples	Frozen blueberries
	Chicken breast	Frozen strawberries
	Beef	Baby spinach
	Eggs	Bananas
		Zucchini
		Red pepper

When I arrived home, I totaled the cost of these items and compared them to conventional food items from my usual grocery store, Harris Teeter.  I spent almost exactly 20 dollars more at Whole Foods!  For the amount of items I purchased, this was quite a difference.  If I look at these prices over the span of a year, I would probably change my buying habits, but as a one-time experiment I’m actually  a little relieved.  Relieved that I’m actually trying to eat healthily, both for the environment and my long-term health.

On Saturday morning, I started the day off right with two eggs, an apple, half a red pepper and a cup of coffee.  The coffee was organic and fair trade certified. When lunch rolled around, I was at work and munched on organic nuts, berries, and a peach I had previously purchased.  After eight hours of work, I made steak salad with the beef, greens, and yellow squash.  I used a raspberry vinaigrette for dressing which was neither organic nor local.  It was in my refrigerator and I couldn’t let it go to waste!  For the remainder of the night I snacked on a banana.

What a day, what a day.  I woke up Sunday morning planning to go to the Farmer’s Market, but didn’t quite make it…I had to take my boyfriend to an emergency chiropractic appointment.  Lucky for my boyfriend, one of my best friends, Dr. Rose, is a chiropractor.  And actually lucky for me, she also adjusted me while we were there.  My morning was thrown off and I just had to accept the fact that I wasn’t going to the Farmer’s Market.  My brunch consisted of leftover steak salad, an apple, and blueberries.  I didn’t get very creative due to time constraints (homework), so for dinner I had grilled chicken and a salad.

By Monday, I just about had it with the salad, so I didn’t pack a lunch and hoped that somehow I would come across a free lunch at work that was made of sustainable food…I had my regular breakfast of two eggs, red pepper, and coffee.  At lunch I ended up eating chicken and dumplings that a friend had made.  None of the ingredients met my criteria, but I was too hungry to care.  I was swamped with homework the previous day and overloaded with work on Monday, I just didn’t have time to be picky.

On Tuesday, I had my usual for breakfast and headed off to D.C. for a conference.  I drank my organic, fair trade coffee and snacked on organic nuts and berries until lunchtime.  Once again, I failed to meet my criteria for lunch…I only had a 30-minute break and ate at the George Washington University’s dining hall.  Tuesday night I ate chicken breasts and salad again. 

The last five days were challenging, not just because I had a restricted diet, but also because I was so short on time, working 40+ hours and taking 6 credit hours really cut into my food planning and preparation. This is something I need to add into the equation when considering what it will take to make lifestyle changes.  Yes, I’m relieving guilty feelings, but I’m creating a different kind of stress in my life—rushing to complete other things like studying, spending time with friends, laundry, and cleaning. Since I do rely heavily on buying already prepared meals, I need to do patronize restaurants in the area <check out this cool finder tool> , that offer sustainable food selections.  The ones I most often frequent are Chipotle, Le Pain, and Busboys and Poets but their menus are limited.

 I will continue to strive to make responsible eating decisions—I want to maximize the amount of sustainable food I consume while not spending too much money.  I also need to keep in mind the added time of preparing every meal and when that is not possible going to a restaurant that meet’s my criteria.  As I continue to adjust my schedule and learn to fit in more cooking, I will update the page listed at the bottom of the blog “Eating sustainable foods.”

Next week, I’ll be blogging about my experiment to reduce energy consumption, and I’ll have updated footprint and ecological footprint calculations to include my new food purchasing habits!

Social, Economical, and Environmental Impacts of Buying Local and Organic

The first time I was introduced to the idea of eating local and organic to decrease negative impacts on the environment, was while doing research on global warming. I was taking a technical writing class to keep my mind active during a short stint as a receptionist…The final class project was to pretend to be a researcher for a Virginia senator and write a two-page report about global warming.  While I’ve been concerned about conservation since I was a child—buying “save the rainforests” pencils from the Cleveland Zoo in third grade, always turning off lights when I left a room, cutting plastic six-pack rings to save the turtles, and shutting off the water while I brushed my teeth—it was the global warming report that made I realize all the things I wasn’t doing. I began to understand that simple lifestyle patterns or actions, such as paying attention to the food I am buying, have a great impact on the planet.

What I gathered from reading different articles about global warming, buying local foods can reduce my impact on the environment.  Buying from local farmers will support my community’s economy, and cause less pollution and demand less energy for transportation.  Buying USDA certified organic food means antibiotics, steroids, and pesticides are not used in the production of the food, thus I will not ingest unnecessary chemicals.  Also, pesticides will not get into the soil, water, and air.  

So how much exactly do my food-buying decisions impact the planet?  Based on the footprint calculators I did two weeks ago, my food-buying decisions need to be improved.  Food was my second and third to worst category in both the ecological and carbon footprint calculators.  After reading articles on line and developing my blog for this week, I’ve come to realize how little I know about the impacts of changing from “conventional” food to organic and local, the specific details about what is considered organic and local, and what new findings and current news in the food business.  It has been a hot topic for some years now and it’s about time I get up to speed.  There is a journal article all over the Internet that is based on a study done in the UK on organic food vs. conventional food.  The journal article basically says it was found that organic foods do not have higher nutritional value than conventional food.  But this is not what I’m after.  I want to know the environmental and economical impacts the growing, storing, transporting, and selling of food.  This is going to take time to sift through information and find out what studies have been done to support the importance of buying local and organic food.  I want to know specifically, the pros and cons of local vs. non-local, of organic vs. conventional, and of local vs. organic. 

Next week's blog will contain a summary of my findings, both research in journal articles and news articles, and real-life research as an Alexandria resident, i.e., I will attempt to purchase only local and/or organic foods for five days straight (Friday – Tuesday).  I will talk about my experience, the pros and cons, and how I will move forward to make better food-buying decisions and in the end, reduce my guilt.

My Footprint

Carbon Footprint TM

On average, if everyone were like me, we would need 5 Earths! Absurd?  Not really.  If everyone in the world had the lifestyle of the typical American, we would need 7 Earths.  These estimates are based off of my calculated ecological and my carbon footprints. The ecological footprint calculation measures the amount of land and water it takes to provide and replenish our ecological resources and services. The results are shown in acres (in the U.S.).  For example one of the calculators I used showed that if everyone in the world lived my lifestyle it would take 22.9 acres or 7.5 Earths to sustain everyone.

The carbon footprint calculation isn’t as all-inclusive.  It only accounts for greenhouse gas emissions—our direct use of fossil fuels for things such as gasoline, and our indirect use of fossil fuels to manufacture, transport, and dispose (lifecycle) of products we buy. The carbon footprint calculator provides results measured in tons of CO2.

I calculated my ecological footprint using four calculators and my carbon footprint using four different calculators, all of which showed disappointing results.  I'm a wasteful person who drives too much and eats too much meat. In all but one calculation, I was below the American average, which is not saying much since Americans typically have a footprint that is more than double the global average.  Generally speaking, each calculator asked similar questions--they differed in the level of specificity required in my answers and how my answers were calculated.  I was able to find trends in the calculations which I will talk about in a short overview of my results below.  (Details about each calculator are provided at the bottom of my blog)

TODAi--my favorite Asian buffet

The ecological footprint results showed that I need to improve in the areas of food, i.e., I need to buy local, organic, and eat out less, and services, i.e., I need to find sources of entertainment that require less natural resources, like going for a walk instead of going to Target to binge shop.
The carbon footprint calculations showed that I need to decrease the amount of traveling that requires a lot of fossil fuels, i.e., visit my family in Pennsylvania less and bike to work more.  My average score was 21.  Which is nothing to write home about...although I do have to mention that the results of one calculator was very different from the others, which skewed my average.

Stuck in traffic on I-70

Now that the reasons for my guilt have become a reality and have been clearly displayed on my computer screen, it's time for me to make some changes.  Based on these results I'll tackle food first, then services, then transportation. Next week, I'll write about the changes I've made to my food-shopping habits, and how much the changes affect my ecological and carbon footprints.

About the Blog

Growing up on the edge of the Allegheny National Forest, among black bears, bald eagles, pristine streams, clear starry skies, and other natural surroundings, instilled in me love and respect for the environment. As an adult, I have become more and more aware of how our every day behaviors have significant impacts on the environment.  Things like driving work, using styrofoam products and sleeping with the television on aren't of much concern when one person does it, but when it is the norm for entire society the impacts are significant. This semester I will blog about my quest to trounce my "green guilt."  I will be discovering ways to make lifestyle changes to decrease my impact on the environment.  I'll talk about how my quality of life is affected, the strain on my checking account, and if I'm actually decreasing my impact. Each week, I will blog about a new topic, it will range from product reviews, to commentary on a study, to interviews with a local farmer.