Eating Animals

www.eatinganimals.com

I'm currently reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. Every single one of my friends who's read it has become a vegetarian, so I thought I'd give it a go. I've been trying to be convinced to become a vegetarian for quite a while now, but find myself quite set in my beliefs that it is natural to be an omnivore. In addition, it is usually more sustainable to be a conscious omnivore than a vegetarian or vegan - take for example soy, which is monocropped on industrial farms usually with large amounts of pesticide and is ravenously consumed by the two groups.
I'm up to page 100, so we'll see if I'm convinced in the last 100 pages of the book.

On the same topic, I seem to be very interested in food sustainability recently (as my Klout meter has also showed), so any suggestions to broaden my knowledge on the topic would be much appreciated :)

Earth Day New York!

Wow, Friday's Earth Day Celebration put on by Earth Day NY in Grand Central Terminal was incredible! Very well done with speakers and many booths outside.

Food Panel
Watch the video below to hear about the panelists.

The name of the first speaker is Ana Sophia Jones (apologies I didn't catch the beginning).

1. Have you seen any sort of progression in America's attitudes toward growing and eating fresh food?
Ana Sophia Jones: The food movement is really diverse and apolitical - it's starting to take off all over the country. You can see farmers' markets helping to revitalize the local economy.
Anvil: There is a movement toward organic cotton and organics in clothes, not just food. Organics require crop rotation (good for almost any crop), so, often, organic cotton is rotated in with organic foods products. The organic industry is a $29 billion industry, growing at a rate of 7.7% per year.  Anvil works hard to showcase the stories behind the product so that consumers can relate and be more knowledgable about the production process.


2. How useful and  is third party certification in the organics industry?
Very. The USDA organic certification program has strict codes that are enforced. We need to make sure that federal support for this program is not lost.

3. What can we do as individuals?
Vote with your dollar.
Slow down! Work to get rid of/limit the "bigger, faster, cheaper" mentality.
Look for underutilized spaces and resources.
Small steps are great, but what we really need is policy change.

4. How can we increase transparency in the food system?

Resources mentioned:
www.brooklyngrangefarm.com
www.gustorganics.com
www.lunchthefilm.com
www.reshthemovie.com
www.EarthDayNY.org

Meat Week

Meat Week Official Website

This week is officially Meat Week. I just discovered this, well, interesting, actually more like disturbing, holiday…
The week celebrates meat, and participants eat BBQ every night of the week. There are already 20 chapters in cities all over the country, including one right here in NYC.

Visit their official website here: Meat Week Official Website - but please do not follow their example...

No Impact Eater

This week my goal is going to be to eat sustainable. I am going to go all out this week - eating the most local, sustainable, organic, and least processed food as possible. Next week I will choose the changes that I can reasonable stick with for the long term.

We already eat relatively sustainable at home - minimal processed foods and as much local and organic produce as possible. This week I will aim for the following goals:

1. No corn or soy products: This is actually one of the hardest things to do! We don't realize it, but corn and soy are in everything from Splenda to almost all packaged foods. Our food system right now is suffering from our excessive use of these products. 
2. Organic: Saying no to pesticides!
3. Local: This one is the hardest for the time of year. It really is hard to find all local products in the middle of the winter in New York City (where we have recently had a record 56 inches of snow!) I will do my best, but undoubtedly there will be some food this week that won't be local. 
4. Sustainable: I'm going to use the Good Guide on as much as I can - although many of their products are (understandably) processed and prepackaged.
5. The fewer the ingredients, the better!
6. No Aspartame: I just had to add this one with all the health risks I have heard recently about Aspartame. Although it is not directly related to sustainability I am currently an aspartame junkie and would like to kick the habit!

This is my own modified and simpler version of No Impact Man's conditions. (If you haven't seen his movie i highly suggest it). 

I also have a facebook page that I made for this over the summer (when i tried this before). 

I will be writing there this week as well.

Vegetarianism...

Here's another disturbing video. I have considered vegetarianism many times, and ultimately decided that as long as I get my food from local, organic, sustainable, and ethical stores and companies, humans are meant to be omnivores. But I'm not sure I'll be eating chicken for dinner tonight after watching the video above. I found it in this post on Elephant Journal. It's not the first of this type of thing I've seen - reading Omnivore's Dilemma is a pretty good wake up call along with some other YouTube videos that I've seen.

Meatless Monday is a great initiative to start cutting meat out of your diet without completely becoming vegetarian.