Photo courtesy of Benito78 at Flickr.com.
Ask the average person on the street, and they’ll agree with you that food and gas prices have risen a ridiculous amount. Most of us can remember buying gas for less than $2 a gallon or buying 10 ears of corn for a dollar. That was back when the greenback had some serious buying power - now, it’s so weak that even international supermodels are turning their nose up at the US dollar.
Back in 2006, gasoline cost about 5% of the average consumers take-home pay. Since then, gas prices have risen nearly 90%. So, even though most of us are using less gas these days, the average American is now spending about 9% of their after-tax income on oil.
That money has to come from somewhere else on the balance sheet. For an increasing number of people with tight budgets, economic trends are forcing us to change our habits in ways that have unintended side effects. Restaurant sales are down as their customer opt for more home cooked meals (or even home grown meals). Movie theaters are hurting because people are choosing to save money by staying at home. State highway departments are in trouble because people who use less gas also pay fewer fuel taxes. Many people are even trading in their SUVs for smaller cars (imagine that)!
Photo courtesy of JAEbugs at Flickr.com.
The lifestyle choices we make are directly related to the choices available to others. When Americans order a double meat hamburger patty, we’re consuming a whole slew of resources. Beyond the beef itself, we’re consuming pasture land, fertilizer, fuel used to transport the beef, and more fuel to cook it. Americans consume 24% of the world’s energy, and citizens of other countries are harmed by our excesses.
On average, one American consumes as much energy as
2 Japanese 6 Mexicans 13 Chinese 31 Indians 128 Bangladeshis 307 Tanzanians 370 Ethiopians
Worldwide, the picture is grim. Starvation and malnutrition are serious dangers in Bangladesh, Haiti, Somalia, and other countries that rely on cheap food imports. People living in those countries aren’t being forced to choose between gourmet coffee and house payments - parents in many countries are faced with the decision of feeding themselves, or feeding their children.
Americans eat 815 billion calories of food each day - that’s roughly 200 billion more than needed - enough to feed 80 million people.
One of the biggest problems with the American diet is our overconsumption of protein. Protein is high in calories, and our bodies convert it to fat. There’s a relation between our rising beef consumption and the growing obesity epidemic. Also, the kidneys are responsible for converting protein into usable forms. Eating excessive protein can cause serious kidney problems (including diabetes and failure to regulate blood pressure):
Ideally, you should consume 0.36 grams of protein for every pound of body weight, according to recommended daily allowances (RDA) set by the Food and Nutrition Board. So if you weigh 170 pounds, you need about 61 grams of protein each day. Protein should also make up approximately 15% of your total daily caloric intake…
Photo courtesy of :hMd: at Flickr.com.
The average American consumes about twice that much protein. This overconsumption has devastating effects on our health, but it also has wide ranging impacts on the rest of the world. If we consumed less meat, there would be less strain on the world food supply:
The whole world has never come close to outpacing its ability to produce food. Right now, there is enough grain grown on earth to feed 10 billion vegetarians, said Joel E. Cohen, professor of populations at Rockefeller University and the author of “How Many People Can the Earth Support?” But much of it is being fed to cattle, the S.U.V.’s of the protein world, which are in turn guzzled by the world’s wealthy.
So, that’s something to think about the next time you’re out shopping. Instead of adding a second T-Bone to your cart, you might want to pick up some squash and pasta. Switching to one vegetarian meal each day can greatly reduce your footprint, while also improving the variety of nutrients in your diet and saving some money too!
Photo courtesy of striped tail at Flickr.com.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Photo courtesy of PålLøberg at Flickr.com.
The cost of electricity is rising quickly due to increased demand. This summer, we can expect high bills from running the air conditioner and charging batteries. The best way to get on top of the problem is to get ahead of the meter reader by trading in your prehistoric stove for an induction stove.
Unlike other stoves, which cook using radiant heat from gas or electric coils, an induction stove cooks using magnets. It generates a magnetic field that rapidly heats up metal pots and pans, delivering heat right where you need it. In the process, induction stoves consume about half of the energy that conventional stoves use. They also deliver quicker results, heating up cookware in half the time because more of the heat is going where it should:
Induction cooking uses 90% of the energy produced compared to only 55% for a gas burner and 65% for traditional electric ranges.
Best of all, saving power in the kitchen has a multiplier effect! When heat is wasted, it has to go somewhere. With conventional stoves, the waste heat warms up your house (which isn’t great in the middle of summer) and then has to be cooled down with energy intensive air conditioning. When you use an induction stove, you save power twice!
As an added bonus, you can use all your steampunk cast iron and stainless steel cookware - aluminum and glass wont even heat up on the stove.
Photo courtesy of theTeaLeaf at Flickr.com.
Popularity: 7% [?]
22 Apr 08 |
Photo courtesy of hugoahlenius at Flickr.com.
The oceans are in trouble. Fish catches are starting to fall despite an increase in the number of people fishing and despite advances in fishing technology. Many fish that were once plentiful, such as cod and Chilean Sea Bass, are almost unobtainable. Due to overfishing, new diseases, climate change, and pollution, we are reaching a tipping point where many species are no longer able to replace their losses.
“Since 1950, with the onset of industrialized fisheries, we have rapidly reduced the resource base to less than 10 percent—not just in some areas, not just for some stocks, but for entire communities of these large fish species from the tropics to the poles.”
If fish disappear from the ocean, the effects will be massive. Roughly 2 billion people rely on fish for the majority of their protein intake. Without this food source, starvation is a very real possibility for many fishing villages. Luckily, some people are looking for an alternative before widespread extinction sets in. Kona Blue is one such company - they’re spearheading a program of deep ocean aquaculture. In the words of Neil Sims (Kona Blue’s founder):
“We would have never been able to sustain our population if we had remained a hunter-gatherer society on land. And I’m not sure what makes people think we can remain that way in the ocean,”
The response from chefs is encouraging - imagine sustainable fish that tastes even better than fish from the ocean!
Photo courtesy of swee at Flickr.com.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Photo courtesy of millwhistle at Flickr.com.
One of the criticisms of organic food is that pesticides, chemical fertilizer, and hormone injections are necessary to produce enough food to feed the world. Naysayers often regard organic food as an indulgence of the wealthy and argue that widespread adoption of organic practices could lead to mass starvation.
This idea has legs, despite being repeatedly discredited. A study in 2002 found that organically grown apple orchards produce comparable outputs to other methods. And just this week, the University of Wisconsin found that organic alfalfa, wheat, corn, and soy beans yield a comparable or even superior harvest to conventionally grown crops.
In this research they found that: organic forage crops yielded as much or more dry matter as their conventional counterparts with quality sufficient to produce as much milk as the conventional systems; and organic grain crops: corn, soybean, and winter wheat produced 90% as well as their conventionally managed counterparts
These results are a good news for organic farmers as well as organic consumers. While organic foods and clothes account for just a tiny share of the consumer market today, the organic market is expected to double in size by 2011. If the naysayers are right, this shift in production would reduce supplies at the same time that global demand for high grade food is exploding. Thankfully, organic food has proven that it can meet or exceed dietary needs.
This doesn’t mean that buying organic food is always the best choice. For some foods, the organic label is essentially meaningless (because they aren’t generally grown with fertilizer or pesticides) but foods with the organic label may be priced significantly higher. If you’re on a budget, here’s a list of the 12 foods where buying organic matters the most. These foods are among those most heavily contaminated with pesticides, or where pesticides are often found that pose the greatest risk to humans.
Also, it’s important to consider calorie miles when choosing your food. If the source of organic food is halfway around the world, the food miles spent to bring it to the grocery store can offset the environmental benefits. To raise awareness of food miles, several countries are considering banning organic labels from food that travels by airplane.
Photo courtesy of lillylain at Flickr.com.
Popularity: 9% [?]
Photo courtesy of musicpb at Flickr.com.
Recently, many commodity prices have gone through the roof. You don’t have to look any further than the gas station to see the effects of $110 for a barrel of oil. A visit to the grocery store will quickly reveal that prices are also jumping for corn and wheat, as well as chicken, pork, and beef. The high price of transporting food (as well as the secondary effects of corn being diverted for ethanol production) is directly tied to high oil costs, and these rising food costs are creating serious problems for the working poor.
Photo courtesy of Leesure at Flickr.com.
Even if you’re a model of self reliance and walk everywhere while growing your own food without chemical fertilizer, try this on for size - increased worldwide demand is causing a coal shortage. Since about 50% of the US electric grid relies on coal power plants, this means that rising coal costs are likely to cause rising electric bills (and/or increasing outages). That will affect the cost of green power purchased on the open market too - which makes solar panels look a lot more attractive (more marginal benefit from power savings and higher resale prices on grid tie-ins). Always look on the bright side!
Photo courtesy of lifebegreen at Flickr.com.
Popularity: 5% [?]
22 Mar 08 |
If you have a video camera, an exhibitionist streak, and a desire the change the world, Whole Foods wants you! The natural and organic food superstore is hunting for 6 members of the “Earth Generation” (anyone born between 1991 and 1995) to voice their opinions about where the future lies for sustainable consumption.
Good luck!
Popularity: 7% [?]
16 Mar 08 |
Photo courtesy of fastfoodforthought at Flickr.com.
Rooftop gardens, which are also sometimes called “Green Roofs”, have been encouraged in the developed world as a way of moderating urban temperature and rain water flood surges. In India, a new program is developing rooftop gardens with different goals in mind.
Rooftop gardens offer urban farmers a chance to turn squalor into nutrition. Equally important, they offer diversity to the household income. In a country where many women and low-caste men are often shut out from job opportunities, green roofs can do more than minimize the impact of weather.
Photo courtesy of /\ltus at Flickr.com.
Popularity: 7% [?]
12 Mar 08 |
Photo courtesy of trochaic at Flickr.com.
Bottled water has come under a lot of fire lately, but soda bottles are made with some of the same PET plastics. Soda bottles cause the same environmental harms and may even cause greater damage to our health.
Soda bottles aren’t good for the earth. They fill landfills, clog oceans, and release pollution during both production and distribution. Our consumption of these bottles is rising at an alarming pace:
According to the Container Recycling Institute, Americans consumed in excess of 200 billion bottled and canned beverages last year; an increase of 50 billion bottles and cans from ten years prior. That figure isn’t just due to population increase - people are consuming more. Consumption of beverages in aluminum, glass, steel and plastic containers in the USA has skyrocketed from just over 250 units per person annually in 1970 to over 670 today.
What can we do about plastic soda bottles?
1.) Drink less soda.
2.) Choose glass bottles instead of plastic.
3.) Use re-usable containers and cups.
4.) Contact bottling companies and request they offer bioplastic options.
5.) Recycle all bottles that we do use (and make sure to take off the caps).
When you follow these tips, the benefits will add up over time just like coins in a jar. Small changes can create huge effects!
Photo courtesy of targeteer2k at Flickr.com.
Popularity: 5% [?]
18 Feb 08 |
For some, going completely organic with all of your food purchases is overwhelming and often expensive. So consider starting out small, buying a few organic products and building from there. Did you know that a lot of people make the leap to organic products with milk?
Organic milk is a familiar sight in most dairy sections around the country, so it’s an easy gateway to other organic products.
Organic milk has several benefits. For starters, to be labeled by the USDA as “organic,” it must come from cows that have not been treated with any Bovine Growth Hormone. Just to be clear, if you are drinking regular milk, the growth hormone doesn’t show up in your milk just because it is given to a cow. But it gives you peace of mind knowing that the milk you are drinking wasn’t conjured up by giving artificial hormones to cows. Another benefit of organic milk is that it only comes from cows that were not treated with any antibiotics. But you don’t have to worry about the cows. If a cow gets sick, it can still be treated with antibiotics to get well, if they are necessary. Those cows just can’t produce milk with the rest of the herd for one year. Finally, cows that make organic milk also have to be given feed grown without organic pesticides, whether it is grass or grains. And the cows must have access to pasture.
Most organic milk is ultra-pasteurized. That means instead of being heated to 162 degrees for 15 seconds like regular pasteurization, ultra-pasteurized milk is heated to 280 degrees for two seconds, then chilled. The sell-date on ultra-pasteurized milk can be several weeks after the date of purchase, so for a small family or business that doesn’t use milk every day, organic milk is a great way to not be wasteful because it lasts longer. If your milk at home sometimes goes bad before you have a chance to drink it all, then you might actually save money by drinking organic.
Organic milk also uses less energy to produce and creates less waste than non-organic milk since there are no pesticides and chemicals and all the stuff that goes along with that involved. Using less energy to create something just as good or better just makes sense.
So next time you head to the grocery store or super market, try out the organic milk if you aren’t drinking it already. Unless you’re vegan. In that case, go with the organic soy.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Cows produce methane; and before you start thinking the obvious cud chewing animals produce methane breaking down the cellulose in plants and…well…burp it out. Methane is 2nd on the list of harmful greenhouse gasses and aside from being burped out by cattle it is produced by rice paddies, wetlands, and a host of less natural processes.
As much as I love the major organic food store chain (the granola aisle alone is worth the trip) antibiotics in cow feed retards the methane production so that US grown beef and milk have not been adding to the problem as much as third world and in the wild cattle do. Add that to the fact that zero of the antibiotics or growth hormones that everyone worries so much about can actually be detected scientifically in milk means that if your environmentally conscious you might want to avoid the organic dairy and beef.
Popularity: 6% [?]