4 Ways to Cut Back on Your Meat Consumption
Jan 19, 2012 Eco Friendly Home
Most Americans eat too much meat. It’s a big part of the standard American diet, bigger than it needs to be. There are a lot of good reasons to cut back on meat, including consuming less saturated fat, health concerns, decreasing your environmental impact, and cost. The hard part is actually doing so. Today I’d like to share some ways to cut back on your meat consumption.
1. Participate in Meatless Mondays
I do know how hard it can be to get some families to accept any vegetarian meals at all. My husband used to comment with every vegetarian meal on which meat he thought would improve it. Then I told him one day how much that pissed me off and pointed out how it really wasn’t so different from our daughter’s habit of announcing that she disliked unfamiliar meals before trying them. That was a habit of hers we’d been trying to break, so pointing out the similarity really made him think.
2. Eat Smaller Portions of Meat
If you have trouble giving up meat completely with your meals, you can always go for smaller portions. The portion size many people eat is too big anyhow when it comes to meat.
You can also think of meat as flavor, rather than a major component of the meal. Use a small amount of ground beef or ground sausage in pasta sauce, for example. If you’re making stir fry, add more vegetables and less meat.
3. Buy Grass Fed Beef
Grass fed beef costs a lot more than other beef, and that will encourage you to eat less of it. Many say it’s healthier for you and of course better for the cattle.
4. Eat Meat Only One Meal a Day
You don’t have to have meat at every meal. Pick one meal a day and make it vegetarian. You may have to experiment to figure out the recipes you enjoy most, but that can be the fun part. It’s an excuse to try new food combinations. I have a fondness for black bean and artichoke burritos, for example. I usually keep some beans in the freezer and assemble the rest fresh, although I suspect you could make a bunch and freeze them if you prefer.
Remember that there are many other places to get your protein, and they’re often cheaper than meat. Get used to making meals with other protein sources, and you may find that they can taste great too. Do a lot of experimenting to find recipes that work for you and your family.
Tags: cutting back on meat, food, meatless meals
Thinking About Food Waste – Blog Action Day 2011
Oct 16, 2011 Eco Friendly Home
#BAD11 – I enjoy participating in Blog Action Day each year. The topics are very interesting, and can be quite important. This year’s topic, food, lends itself to so many possibilities, but I decided to write about food waste in particular. With 3 kids, food waste happens, you can’t stop it entirely. You can try to control it.
Food waste is a huge part of the municipal solid waste generated every year. According to the EPA, it was 14.1% before recycling, and only a small percentage of food waste was recovered through recycling. You can read a detailed report on this at http://www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/msw2009-fs.pdf. This doesn’t count composting at home; it’s just about what goes into the waste stream.
Some food waste is just in the nature of preparing food. The term includes the scraps that come about from preparing food. If you have a compost bin, the waste from preparing fruits and vegetables can at least be kept out of the waste stream and benefit your garden. Those bits aren’t as problematic as other kinds of food waste.
Cutting Down on Food Waste at Home
Home is the place where you have the most control over food waste. You have the ability to buy only what you need and to make sure leftovers are eaten in a timely manner.
Buying only what you need is often difficult, short of going to the store daily, which has its own serious problems. Most of us are simply not perfect at keeping track of the fresh foods in the fridge, and it often gets worse when those fresh foods become a part of leftovers. Even so, we need to try.
Some foods last better than others, of course. Just compare the shelf life of an apple to a banana. When you have fresh foods, think about preparing or serving the foods that spoil quickly first, saving the more durable fresh foods for later in the week.
To control leftovers, start with your cooking habits. How much will you and your family really eat at a sitting? How can you cook enough to satisfy everyone without having leftovers, or at least have fewer leftovers?
Next, figure out how to get people eating leftovers when you have them. If you have the freezer space, you can make them into frozen lunches to go to work or for those days you don’t want to spend much time on lunch. You can also make it a goal to eat those leftovers before freezing them becomes necessary.
Don’t forget your smaller amounts of leftovers. Sometimes you may need to combine two days of leftovers to get a good new meal out of them.
Kids can be some of the biggest offenders on food waste, and the hardest to control. I can’t tell you how often I have to remind mine to finish a half eaten apple or try to figure out a way to get them to eat a dinner they didn’t enjoy that much. I have a few standby additions my kids reach for when they don’t enjoy a meal, which really help limit the complaints and uneaten meals. The right cheese solves many problems with children. So does ketchup.
You should talk to your kids about why it’s important to not waste food. The recent Sesame Street special on food insecurity really hit home with my oldest, who had been quite reluctant to watch something as babyish as Sesame Street; then she had to watch it again the next night because it touched her so much. When I checked, they had the entire Growing Hope Against Hunger episode on that page.
Benefits of Wasting Less Food
The first benefit of wasting less food is obvious. You spend less money on food. That’s pretty simple. A 2006 study found that people throw away an average of 14% of the food they buy. Cut that number down, and you can save a nice little chunk off your monthly grocery bills, or about $600 a year for a family of 4.
Food waste is also an environmental issue. When food waste goes into a landfill, it decomposes and produces methane. Composting it, on the whole, is probably the better answer when you can’t avoid wasting food and have a way to compost it. Just make sure you aren’t doing anything that will attract rodents or other pests.
Is There Anything Else You Can Do?
While there’s only a little you can do directly about it, I suggest you take a look at the EPA’s food recovery hierarchy for more ideas on how to limit food waste. Most of us don’t have enough excess food that can be safely donated to food banks and such, but it’s good to know what kinds of things you should be encouraging in your community.
Tags: #BAD11, food, food waste, leftovers
How to Make School Lunches Your Child Will Eat
Aug 31, 2010 Eco Friendly Parenting
Many parents these days are concerned with the quality of lunches provided by public schools. To put it mildly, many schools offer extremely unhealthy foods for lunch. As parents who want their kids to eat better, how can you help them?
Packing a healthy lunch for your child is one of the simplest things you can do to help them eat better. The challenge is making a lunch they’re more likely to eat than to trade away to friends.
Pay Attention to Their Likes
The first thing to do is know what your child likes to eat. This may change from year to year and even in the middle of the school year. Keep talking to your kids about what they like to eat for lunch and find healthy ways to provide that.
School lunch packing is not the best time to experiment or challenge your child’s food preferences. It’s easy for them to trade away unliked foods, or even to just throw it away uneaten. Push their interests at home where you can see the results.
Leftovers
Sometimes leftovers are great for lunches. You may need to provide a thermos to keep the food warm, but other leftovers taste great cold.
If there’s a meal your kids really love, make extras that you can separate into easy lunches and freeze. You can save excess for dinners for the whole family as well, of course. Providing them with favorite home cooked meals to eat at school may increase the chances that your child will eat what you’ve given them.
Wraps
Don’t stick to the traditional sandwiches for every meal. Wraps are a great alternative, so long as you pick healthy whole grain tortillas, not just white flour tortillas.
Wraps are easy to make. You want to cover most of the tortilla, but leave a little distance from the edges to keep things neat. Lunch meats, vegetables and spreads work well. Mix them up and find out which your kids love the most. Do let your kids try hummus sometime, first at home, but if they like it, hummus is a great wrap ingredient.
Healthy Sides
Know what your kids love in terms of fruits and vegetables. Most will have a few favorites. Try to provide these in their school lunches.
My kids love bell peppers and cucumbers, for example. Put these in their lunch and they’ll usually be eaten.
Keep it Simple
Kids don’t need a feast at lunchtime. They need simple, filling foods and not a big selection. They’re usually as interested in chatting with their friends as they are in eating their food. Sometimes more interested in chatting with their friends. Give them too many choices and a lot of it will end up in the trash.
Dessert Doesn’t Have to Mean Sugar
Kids love getting a dessert item in their lunches. An occasional cookie or other treat isn’t going to ruin them either. But the dessert doesn’t have to be cookies or candy.
Berries work great. Granola bars usually have a lot of sugar, but have other healthy ingredients. Try to balance sweetness with good for your kids.
Variety May Not Be the Spice of Life
Don’t feel bad if you’re packing the same lunch over and over. Most kids like consistency. If they complain, that’s the time to mix things up.
Tags: back to school, bag lunch, food, healthy food, school, school lunches
20 Things Your Kids Can Do for the Environment
Jun 28, 2010 Eco Friendly Parenting
It’s not just adults who should be doing the best they can for the environment. Kids can help too. Take some time and teach them to do their part.
1. Reduce
The 3 Rs apply to your kids, and reduce is the first one to teach them. Help them to learn the difference between need and want. When you go shopping with them, and they start begging for whatever it is they see on the shelves, discuss why they want it. If it’s needed, talk about what makes it needed. If it’s just something they want, talk about when you buy things you just want and when you should skip them.
2. Reuse
Kids who enjoy crafts are great at reusing things. They can make wonderful projects from things you might have otherwise thrown into the recycle bin or thrown away.
3. Recycle
Teach them from a young age to sort items into the recycle bin. Once they’re old enough to recognize the types of paper, plastic and metals that can be recycled in your area they can help put recyclables in the right place rather than in the trash.
4. Walk or Bike to School
If your child’s school is at all within a reasonable distance, why not have them walk or ride a bike there. Odds are good that you did the same growing up if your school was near enough. It never ceases to amaze me how many people I see driving less than a block to bring their child to school. With the crowd of cars around the school, walking would be faster for many of them, including the time to return themselves home if the parents went with the kids.
5. Pick Up Trash
We love to go hiking as a family. One thing we include in our hikes is picking up trash if we pass some. It’s easy to carry a bag for trash as you go walking. This can be done at neighborhood playgrounds as well.
6. Turn Off Extra Lights
There are some ages where kids will be really good at this one. They’ll give you a hard time anytime you forget to turn off a light as you leave a room. Other times, they won’t be so good at it.
7. Turn Off Electronics When Not in Use
Kids these days spend a lot of time with electronics these days. Television, computers, video games, kids love them.
Some of these you only need to teach the kids to turn off when they’re done with them. For others, you may want to consider adding in a power strip so that the electronics can be turned completely off, and not use any extra power at all, even for displaying a clock. You can also buy a smart strip
8. Plant a Garden
Whether you plant a serious vegetable garden, a few herbs, some flowers or a tree, it’s all good for the environment if you keep it organic. Kids usually love gardening, and any produce grown is good for them too. Remember the bees when you choose your flowers!
9. Help Compost
While dealing with much of the compost pile may be an adult or teen job, kids of any age can throw fresh vegetable scraps into the compost pile.
10. Volunteer
It can be hard to find age appropriate volunteer opportunities when the kids are young sometimes, but it gets easier as they get older. Volunteering helps your children to see how fortunate they are in what they have and that others make do with far less.
11. Use Reusable Containers to Bring Lunch to School
Many school lunches aren’t so healthy, so having your kids bring their lunch to school is a great idea. Don’t use paper bags or plastic bags for their lunches. Buy reusable lunch containers for them. I particularly like my daughter’s Klean Kanteen water bottle.
12. Donate Old Clothes and Toys
Have your kids help you to go through their old clothes and toys and find the ones in good enough condition to donate to a worthwhile charity.
13. Shop Resale and Thrift Shops
If you don’t teach your kids this one while they’re young, you can get a lot of resistance at first. Keep it up and they will realize how many great outfits are available for a lot less money. This teaches them to be thrifty and to look for used items before buying new.
14. Use Homemade Cleansers
Kids should start doing chores around the house as soon as they’re old enough. But why expose them to the harsh chemicals of store bought cleansers when you can teach them how to clean with healthier products such as baking soda and vinegar? Better for them and for the environment.
15. Eat Less Fast Food
Kids love fast food, but most of it is bad for them and the environment. Talk to them about why eating out too much is a bad habit.
16. Close Blinds and Curtains
This is most important during the summer, when the heat comes in through windows. Closing the blinds or curtains helps to block much of that heat. It’s also a help in winter, to keep heat from escaping the house, however there are times where having even the winter sun come into the house is a benefit, so help your kids know when to let the sunlight into your home.
17. Open a Window
As the day cools, teach your kids to open windows rather than run the air conditioner during the summer. It works really well, keeps the power bill down and doesn’t create any carbon to open a window.
18. Set Up a Bird Feeder
Feeding the birds
19. Use Fewer Toys that Require Batteries
Many children’s toys require batteries. The problem isn’t just the batteries, it’s that many of these don’t encourage creative or active play. Do get rechargeable batteries for those toys that do need them, but have your kids think about playing more with toys that don’t need batteries at all.
20. Eat Less Meat
This comes easier to some kids than others. Some may be ready to go for complete vegetarianism or veganism. Others will struggle to cut back, just as many adults do.
Have regular meatless meals. Explore new recipes as a family. Be amazed at how wonderful some meatless meals can taste.
Tags: environment, family, food, Gardening, kids, saving energy
Who Really Won the Supreme Court Decision on the GM Alfalfa Ban?
Jun 23, 2010 Environmental News
The Supreme Court issued a ruling on a ban on genetically modified alfalfa seeds that has both Monsanto and environmentalists claiming a win. So who won?
There’s a touch of both. But Monsanto doesn’t come out as clear as they want people to think. They still can’t have their GM alfalfa grown commercially until it’s proven safe enough for the environment. The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has to review it first for safety.
That’s where Monsanto could win this one, to my disappointment, although that wasn’t what the Supreme Court was ruling on. So far APHIS thinks the alfalfa is safe. They have a lot of comments to review before giving approval, but it concerns me that they might approve it.
A big plus is that the Court has recognized the potential for environmental harm coming from transgenetic contamination, and that organic farmers should have the right to go to court over gene flow from genetically modified crops to their own crops.
Overall, I’m not happy about GM alfalfa getting closer to being planted, especially when the modification is so that it can withstand more herbicide. The alfalfa in question is one of Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” varieties. More poison being sprayed on crops because they can handle it better isn’t exactly what I’d call a good situation.
Some countries have already banned GM foods and seeds, and I can see their point. We don’t know enough about the effects of genetically modifying our foods, the foods given to animals that people eat, or the effects of modified genes getting out into the wild. This is dangerous stuff we’re playing with.
My one hope at this point for our country is that farmers who are impacted by genes drifting onto their crops take advantage of this ruling and sue whenever there’s a problem resulting from someone else’s use of GM seeds. There are consequences we already know about and that farmers have experienced – let’s see some of that come out in court.
Tags: food, genetically modified, gm alfalfa, legal, supreme court
