My eco-strategy for this week is No Factory Food. Industrially produced factory foods are bad for the environment and bad for our health. Processed foods that comes in cans, jars, bags and boxes create an unbelievable amount of recycling and landfill waste. I know what my household recycling pile looks like after only a few weeks. It may be “health food” packages in my recycling, but it is still excess packaging. The amount of resources that just go into packaging is horrifying (trees, energy, water). In addition, the carbon footprint of multiple ingredient processed foods are also higher than a single ingredient food. Generally speaking, a processed cereal with oats has a higher carbon footprint than just plain oatmeal. The ingredients (oats, sweetener, wheat, oil, etc..) have to travel to a processing plant, where energy is used to process the raw ingredients into a final product. The final product is then (usually) over packaged (bag + box) and shipped to your local store.
Without constant vigilance processed foods keep slipping back into my pantry. My husband buys convenience foods- boca burgers, salmon burgers, various fake vegetarian meats, spaghetti, rice milk, soy milk, orange juice, potato chips, sauce, etc… These things are here, I am busy and end up eating them. I know from my previous local foods experiments that there are two keys to success in maintaining a diet that is both body friendly and environmentally friendly. The first strategy is making the right choices at the food store and farmers markets. Right now I am shopping locally grown first and then “no factory food” is my next level filter. The second key is taking the time to prepare food. Convenience food is called that for a reason! You take it out of the refrigerator or freezer, pop it in the micro and it is done. Fresh, wholesome foods require washing, peeling, cutting, cooking and sometimes combining. I find that this is hard to do in the mad rush of my working week and therefore have found that making a bunch of great food on Saturday or Sunday is a great strategy. That way the whole family has healthy, easy stuff to grab during the week.
Yesterday my girlfriend Susan came over and we cooked together so we could both have a lot of wholesome food in the fridge for the week to come. Getting together with Susan was a great way to get cooking done and have fun at the same time. We tried some new recipes, had intellectual discourse, and listened to some relaxing chanting music. We made kabocha squash soup with fresh turmeric, Indian potatoes, quinoa salad, beet green casserole, and I attempted the Indian flat bread- Naan (it came out a little too flat!)
