Greener Food

Greening our food choices is a great and easy place to start making a difference. While not everyone may be looking to get into organic gardening or booking on an eco-vacation in the immediate future, something we all do every single day is eat! 

 

Consider this: After cars, the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy — 19%. And while the experts disagree about the exact amount, the way we feed ourselves contributes more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than anything else we do — as much as 37%, according to one study. . . The 20th-century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food. Put another way, when we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases. This state of affairs appears all the more absurd when you recall that every calorie we eat is ultimately the product of photosynthesis — a process based on making food energy from sunshine. There is hope and possibility in that simple fact. ("Farmer in Chief," Michael Pollan, The New York Times)

Making daily food choices provides us frequent opportunities to think about:

• Where our food comes from. Learn why local and seasonal food sources are kinder on our environment.
• What goes into making the food products we choose. Learn why organic food is better for our bodies and our earth.

Some topics related to greener food include: CSAs, Farmers-Markets, Grocers, Produce-Delivery, Catering, Restaurants, Meal-Delivery, Seasonal-Cooking, Meat, Wine, Beer, Baby-Food, School-Meals, Safe-Storage, Bakery

Recommended links for greener food

• How Food Finds its Way to Your Plate (NPR Podcast)
• "Food Industry Pursues the Strategy of Big Tobacco," Kelly Brownell/Yale Environment 360 (article & podcast)
• Local Harvest
• Sustainable Table
• Mighty Foods Blog
• Slow Food
• The Ethicurean
• Edible Nation
• Michaelpollan.com (Index of articles by eco-food writer Pollan)
• Bitten (Food writer Mark Bittman's blog)
• Outstanding in the Field ("roving culinary adventures," "a restaurant without walls")
• "Why Bother with Organic Food When You Can't Even Know What it Means? Addressing Green Skeptics-—Answer in three words: Yes We Can." (Planet Green)

To find greener products or services for Food click here 

Learn more about greener food . . .

In Videos Green by Design: CSA, Organic Gardening & Composting, Beneficial Insects in Biodynamic Wine Making, Is Organic Wine Better Than Regular Wine?, see all.. suggest green Video

In Books Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way Food to Live By: The Earth... The Oldways Table see all.. suggest green Book

In Events suggest green Event