Hi online friends! As the subtitle of this blog states, I try to lead a socially and environmentally conscious lifestyle and sometimes that can prove to be quite challenging. For a while now, I have tried to be very mindful of the food that I eat. This includes knowing where it came from, and if it was an animal, how it was treated during it’s lifetime. In the Fall of 2014, I started reading a book called “Full Planet, Empty Plates” and found startling statistics about meat production, the effort that goes into providing meat protein, and the implications eating meat has on the environment. I quickly decided to significantly reduce my meat consumption.
You’ll notice that I said “significantly reduce” and not “eliminate.” This is for one reason, my husband really loves meat, and honestly, I do too. The goal is to only have it once a week, and then eventually once every two weeks and then maybe, just maybe, it will be once every month. This way it will truly be a treat and we won’t feel bad about the indulgence. With this shift in diet, the majority of our meals are vegetarian or vegan. Usually, if they’re vegetarian, it’s because they include butter. I don’t use a ton of dairy in my cooking because of one of my food intolerances (yay!).
This blog is made up of a homepage in which I’ll post interesting articles that I think are related to this idea, recipes that I’ve used and find to have been successful as meat lovers, and shops that work to provide sustainable clothing, or offer a socially responsible aspect with their product. We moved to Australia in February of 2015, so there’s also some posts about what it’s like living on the other side of the world.
Reason’s Why
Here are some excerpts and statistics from books and articles that I’ve read supporting our decision to lead more of a conscious lifestyle. Right now, this focus primarily on the need to reduce the amount of meat protein that is consumed, but I’m hoping that eventually it’ll focus on other areas as well.
This is part of a post that I had on October 31st, 2014 that I think fits here.
The National Geographic article, “What to Do About Pig Poop? North Carolina Fights a Rising Tide”, reveals that North Carolina and other pig farm states (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Minnesota) have a real problem with the amount of pig waste that results from these large farms. It not only produces a rather foul smell for the surrounding area, but it’s getting into the local water supply of these states and causing contamination with an excess of nitrogen and phosphorus, which contribute to harmful “algal blooms and fish kills.” In addition to excess nutrients, the liquid fertilizer (this occurs by using pig lagoons where their waste mixes with water becoming a liquid fertilizer) can also contaminate the water with parasites, viruses, hormones, pharmaceuticals, and antibiotic-resistance bacteria.
In the last two years, there have been “waste spills” on hog farms in Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and North Carolina. “In October, a hog farm in Callaway County, Missouri, spilled 10,000 gallons (37,854 liters) of waste into a stream. In the same month, a lagoon spilled 100,000 gallons (378,541 liters) at a farm in Greene County, North Carolina.”
Pig farmers in North Carolina, where pig sales reached $2.9 billion in 2012, must follow state law that restricts farmers from spaying liquid fertilizer on fields with standing water, when it’s raining, or on windy days. Even those these restrictions exist, the article reports that they are routinely ignored. Supposedly, this is because oversight is not regularly enforced, so when a task has to go due to too much work, waste management is the first to fall of farmers’ “to do” list. In addition to this lack of oversight, the article states that of the nation’s 20,000 large livestock facilities, only around 40 percent are regulated under the Clean Water Act.
In Anna Patton’s article “Linking up for a food-secure world”, also published in July 2014 on DevEx (they had a big month of food security news), there’s one statement that really stands out to me. And frankly, I find it quite distressing, probably because I know this is a big fault of mine. I’ve tried, and gotten much better about the amount of waste that leaves our household, but it’s a really tricky process to navigate.
“One third of total food production is wasted; while fussy consumers are the main culprits in rich countries, up to half of waste in developing nations happens right after harvesting.”
Something that isn’t 100% relevant to this blog, but I find professionally interesting is the following statement from Anna’s article:
“Small-scale farmers are an economic force — and as both producers and consumers, they’re at the heart of efforts to create a food-secure world. In most African countries, 70 percent of the population relies on agriculture for their livelihoods; most farming is done on small family farms, which produce up to 80 percent of food there.”
The article “Food security is land security“, by Michael Igoe was posted on the DevEx website in July 2014. The entire acticle is very interesting and worth the read, but the paragraphs below are of particular relevance to this blog.
“With concerns mounting over food price shocks, rapid population growth, changing consumption patterns and climate change impacts, calls for a second green revolution” have grown almost cliché. And when those calls fail to engage with the very real tradeoffs that will be required if the world’s food production capacity is going to reach — and sustain — even greater heights, they risk sounding naïve.”
“Land is at the center of those challenges and tradeoffs. While the nature of the relationship between people and the planet has changed in once unthinkable ways, land remains a fundamental component of the world’s ability to feed itself.”
“More people live in urban areas than rural areas for the first time in human history. Cities must be linked to food production and distribution chains that are capable of supplying nutrition to large numbers of people at a consistent and dependable rate — and from a distance. That must all happen at a time when climate change is expected to introduce unpredictable shocks and when more of the global population is demanding higher-input foods like meat and dairy.”
As I state in my About Me section, reading Lester Brown’s book, “Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Security”, is what really sparked me into more than passive action. Because it’s an entire book, there are a number of pieces/statements/paragraphs that I find important, so I created a separate page for excerpts found here. Overall though, I think one of his closing arguments summarizes the majority of the ideals in life that drive my personal and professional life. See below.
On the demand side of the food equation, there are four pressing needs – to stabilize world population, eradicate poverty, reduce excessive meat consumption, and reverse biofuels policies that encourage the use of food, land, or water that could otherwise be used to feed people.
Two cornerstones of eradicating poverty are making sure that all children – both boys and girls – get at least an elementary school education and rudimentary health care. And the poorest countries need a school lunch program, one that will encourage families to send children to school and that will enable them to learn once they are there.
one-quarter vegan 