HEALTHY PLANET: DON'T THROW THAT AWAY!

Since this blog will combine information about healthy eating with information about addressing our planet's health, lets move on to Healthy Planet:

I'm reading Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, edited by Paul Hawken.  It's really great .  It can get a bit science-y for me at times (anything with weights, numbers, and percentages should be explained in iambic pentameter, don't ya think?) but also outlines clear solution-based strategies, large and small, that we can use to help our planet survive.

For example, did you know that 1/3 of food produced on the planet doesn't make it to a dinner plate?  The food wasted contributes 4.4 gigatons (that's a lot) of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere annually, or roughly 8 percent of total human-generated greenhouse gas emissions (the bad stuff that is causing our climate to warm up and freak out).  

In low-income countries this can happen due to poor equipment, bad roads, or lack of refrigeration with food rotting on farms, in transit, or at distribution points.  In higher income countries (ie, our grocery stores; our homes) this waste happens when grocers and consumers reject imperfect fruits and vegetables so they are tossed before they are even shipped, or when they arrive at the store; when retail stores and restaurants order more food than they can use; when super-sized portions are left uneaten; when home cooks make too much and the family eschews leftovers; when we over-buy large quantities to save a bit of money (Hello, Costco) believing it cheaper to just throw away what we can't use, to name a few wasteful practices.  Up to 35% of food in high income countries is thrown away by consumers.  Not good!

Reducing just 50% of current food waste is the 3rd most important step we can take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.   That is significant and has nothing to do with belching smoke from chimneys or driving gas guzzling muscle cars, which we smugly believe to be the main culprits in climate degradation.

Do you ever walk around a grocery store and gape at the enormous quantities and varieties of foods we can buy?  It's overwhelming at times and also something we just take for granted.  Do you think about the farmland, the fertilizer, the migrant worker, the transit and distribution centers, the many stops along the supply chain that got the food to the store and then to your pantry?  Do you honor what it took in terms of landmass and labor to get that food to you by only buying what you will eat?   Do think about how much of it you may throw away?  

It's an exercise in consciousness-raising to really stop and notice.  I've been doing that lately and it is slowly changing my buying decisions.  It's a simple act -- noticing.  It's a simple act -- to be intentional about what we buy and what we eat.  It's a simple act -- that anyone can take.

Here's to health, for ourselves and our planet...©

Photo Credit: www.pixabay.com

Resource: Drawdown; pg 42-43.