You are what you eat

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It's Earth Week, so let's talk about an environmental decision that everyone makes, every day -- what to eat.  Should you eat vegetarian?  vegan?  local? Fair Trade? organic?  Well, it all depends.  In an environmentally-friendly system, food should be:

• produced sustainably, meaning that producing food today won't affect future generations' ability to produce food
• produced using as few resources as possible -- how much habitat does the crop require?  how much water and energy was used to produce the food?  how many resources were needed to transport the food?
• produced causing as few externalities (ie. pollution) as possible

So what to eat?  The answer is different for each person, because we all have different dietary restrictions, budgets, and places that we live.  Here's an interesting article from CNN on the trade-offs and individual choices.

As stated previously on greenmomster, diets that are low on the food chain (that would be primarily plant-based) are most sustainable.  Whether that means eating vegetarian once a week or going totally vegan, you're helping the environment to feed 7 billion (soon to be 9 billion) people sustainably.

But here's the other area in which we all can help to decrease our food-based environmental footprint -- food waste!  By buying more frequently (so food doesn't go bad in your house), composting, and being willing to buy less-than-perfect-looking food, greenmomsters can help to reduce food waste. Save food, save money, save the environment!