While buying local food is beneficial for local farmers, it doesn’t make that much of a difference to the environment. Transportation-related greenhouse gases are a drop in the bucket compared to GHGs associated with land use, farming, and methane produced by cows. Looking at the numbers shows that it’s what you eat, not where it comes from that makes the biggest impact.
Subscription services to healthy, farm-fresh produce promote health for the people who eat the food and financial viability for the farmers who grow it. Many people believe the biggest value of a CSA program is the low environmental impact of buying local, but this first post in a series on CSAs looks at whether eating local food is really the best way to save the planet.
I’ve never met a beet that I liked, and this love/hate issue divides my family in two. What’s a girl to do when beets show up in the farm share box? This week on the blog, I divised a version of “The Dating Game” for myself to try to answer the ultimate question: are beets in any way redeemable? I remain skeptical.
In an attempt to limit my personal demand for plastics and keep those items out of the waste stream, I’ve cut back on takeout and delivery food as much as possible. Now that I’m cooking more, I’ve tried to turn first to what we’ve already got stashed in the back of the cupboards before shopping – and that has been an eye-opening experience.
When the weather gets hot, you need to stay hydrated, but how do you do that if you’ve pledged a Plastic-Free July? Sports drinks come in plastic bottles, and are further secured on flats in layers of plastic film. This summer I turned to an old recipe that predated plastic (and probably the Roman Empire) to help me through the heat and my zero-plastic challenge.