Six Ways To Be "Green" At The Grocers

While the saying it's not easy being "green" still holds true in some areas. In many locales throughout the United States, being green is easier than ever before.

Whether you live in one of America's greenest cities such as Eugene Oregon, or in a place where the infrastructure isn't so environmentally friendly, there is still a place where you can have a positive impact on the environment- at the grocery store. Let's examine a few ways that you can make your food choices better for the environment.

Bring Your Own Grocery Bags

One of the worst things for the environment is plastic. Most plastics take hundreds, if not thousands of years to decompose. An easy way to limit the amount of plastic bags that you use, and ultimately throw away, is to purchase reusable grocery bags.

Purchase Less Packaging

Buy products with as little packaging as possible. Instead of multi-packs, purchase large jugs of juice and use your own containers. Look for a block of cheese instead of individually wrapped slices.

Buy Organic

Organic foods are grown without the use of chemicals or other pesticidal agents that harm the environment. If you are purchasing organic meats, in theory, these have been raised apart from the ecologically destructive factory farming system.

Buy Local

Supporting your local farmers market can save a significant amount of carbon emissions. Instead of foods being shipped hundreds or even thousands of miles, most farmers market offer fruits, vegetables, and other goods produced by members of your own community.

Veg Out

Eating a vegetarian meal is a great way to help the environment. Commercial animal agriculture is the largest producer of greenhouse gases.

In addition to being responsible for some eighteen to twenty percent of total greenhouse emissions, animal farms are the number one producer of methane gas. Methane has twenty one times the warming potential of carbon dioxide. Additionally, meat production uses up to twenty times more energy and ten times more water than producing a similar quantity of grain.

Plan Ahead

Don't fall into the trap of making random trips to the grocery store. Make a list and plan your meals accordingly. By planning ahead for grocery shopping and making less frequent trips you will save on both fuel and the associated greenhouse gas emissions. Planning also helps to eliminate waste. By sticking to your planned grocery list you are less likely to make sporadic purchases that will possibly go uneaten and have to be discarded.

Get Fit

A great benefit of "green" grocery shopping is that most ecologically friendly food items are quite healthy. You will often find yourself eating foods that are both nutritious and tasty, while also being low in harmful additives, artificial flavors, and fat. Combine your newfound healthy eating habits with thirty minutes of daily exercise and chances are, you'll be around long enough to see the positive effects that both you and others like you are having on the environment.

Copyright 2009 thinkword.blogspot.com All rights reserved

What Do You Eat?

Of all the things I've heard asked of vegetarians, this one is by far the most ridiculous. Standing there with a puzzled look of disbelief the beguiled omnivore often asks: "Oh, well if you don't eat meat, then, what do you eat?"

Odd indeed. As even for meat eaters, meat is rarely the only thing on the menu, let alone the dinner plate.

More than that, how could anyone with a reasonably varied diet answer such a question? For the vegetarian, the most correct response would be, "I eat everything BUT meat!" However, perhaps due in part to the shock of answering such a ridiculous question, the witty portion of their brain inevitably shuts down, and they find themselves struggling to recount a few favorite random meals. Usually, what was eaten the night before or perhaps what they might plan on eating in the near future.

Needless to say after recounting a handful of things, anyone would be drawing a mental blank and growing weary of the exchange. Now in the mind of the meat eater, this only serves to validate the unsaid statement hidden in their question. That statement being: since you are not ingesting the genetically manipulated and chemically enhanced carcasses of abused factory farmed animals, you must certainly only be managing to eke out the most miserable and meager culinary existence.

Why just think of all of the food you are missing out on! No doubt the omnivorous bully conjures up the mental image of the lonely waif vegetarian begrudgingly digging in to an oh so unsavory dinner of iceberg lettuce, steamed white rice, plain tofu, and perhaps a few carrot sticks tossed in for dessert. Yum Yum.

What is truly amazing though, is that while ignorantly scrutinizing the supposedly severe and unbearable limitations of being a vegetarian, (file that one under urban legend, myth, and flat out lie) they ignore the staunch repetition of a meat based diet. A diet that generally revolves only around chicken (or insert other fowl which tastes like chicken), beef, and pork, maybe with some occasional seafood tossed in when the checking account balance isn't in danger of calling upon overdraft protection.

Really, it all comes down to this: no matter how you skewer, braise, fry, grill, or broil it. . .you are eating the same meats again and again, repeat ad infinitum. Now compare the four basic meat items to the nearly limitless fruits and vegetables available both here in the U.S. and abroad just waiting to indulge our culinary fantasies. And, ask yourself the question: "So, what do you eat?" Let us know the comments.

Copyright 2009 thinkword.blogspot.com All rights reserved.