Water Footprint?

In a recent article by National Geographic, I learned that the average American household is fueled by 2000 gallons of water a day. The surprising part is, the obvious suspects here such as dishwashers, showers and lawns only make up 5% of this amount. The rest comes from factors we generally don't see and therefore fail to consider.

I took this fun, 10 minute Water Footprint quiz about my lifestyle that measured the water I consume. If you take the quiz, some of the questions might startle you as they did me, as you realize that the number one culprit in water consumption is our food system.

I consider myself an occasional meat eater. I put down on average a modest estimate of twice a week consumption of pork, beef, and chicken, with very little dairy. (This is far below the national average of 6-7 weekly servings of each.) My lifestyle equated to about 1130 gallons of water a day, which is far below the national average of 2000; yet even still, my diet constituted 65% of my Water Footprint.

Surely there is something we all can do to be a little better at conserving one of our most precious resources. Check out the quiz and see how well you fare in comparison, or try this list of the amount of water it takes to create popular, common commodities.

10 Simple Ways to Be More Green

Happy Earth Day, everyone! I was browsing chow.com and came across an interesting article, "10 Simple Ways To More Green". I thought I would share some them and see what people thought about these- reasonable, or asking too much? #2 makes me worry about messiness and contamination. Also #1 and #5 seem a little contradictory. What do you think?

1. Buy only what you know you’ll consume in a week, to avoid throwing away stuff you don’t end up using. (Steer clear of the “stockin’ up!” Costco mentality.)

2. Don’t use the plastic bags for fruits and vegetables in grocery stores. Bring your own that you’ve saved at home from when you were less green, or don’t bag at all. Wash and reuse saran wrap—just dry it on the drying rack.

3. Think before you open the oven and fridge so you don’t waste electricity. Don’t stand in front of the open refrigerator eating jam with your fingers. (The first is green; the second is gross.)

4. Don’t ditch beet tops, turnip tops, or radish tops—sauté them and eat them! Save scraps of meat and vegetables in the freezer and make stock when you have enough.

5. Buy stuff from the bulk section to avoid packaging. (Most markets will let you bring any kind of container you want—Mason jar, gym sock, what have you—just weigh it empty first and record the weight somewhere on the container for the checker.)

6. Shop at local, independent grocery stores, bakeries, and other purveyors, as well as at farmers’ markets. Fewer goods will have traveled thousands of miles to get to the shelves.

7. Try some baking soda or coarse salt to remove caked-on food from a pan or oven before you resort to oven cleaner. That stuff is toxic.

8. No bottled water. Ever.

9. Use cold water to wash all but your greasiest of dishes. Hot water heaters use energy.

10. Learn to cook. Eat the Michael Pollan way: mostly plants. Grow your own herbs. Feed your friends—staying in is the new going out.

On Locavores, Or How Bananas May Be Destroying the Earth

A new catchphrase has arisen in the past decade, the result of books such as Michael Pollen’s "The Omnivore’s Dilemma" and Barbara Kingsolver’s "Animal Vegetable Miracle". The word is locavore, meaning someone who eats locally grown food, generally within a 100 mile radius of their home. The reasons for doing so are:

1) Superior taste. When it comes to most fruits, vegetables, eggs, and meats, the fresher the food, the better the taste. Asparagus tastes better freshly picked and eaten 2 days later than it does when flown in from Chile and eaten 10 days later by an American in Arizona.

2) Environmental conscientiousness. Food that is flown or shipped in from other countries has a negative effect on the environment. Take for example, bananas. I will venture to say that every grocery store in America that carries produce sells bananas, nearly all of which are flown here from Latin America. Think of all the fossil fuel used in shipping that many bananas to us, not to mention the gas emissions by the planes or boats that bring them.

3) It’s economically savvy. Buying locally grown food supports local farmers and the overall local economy. It may be cheaper as well, as the price you pay does not include the cost of shipping that product from another country.

Even with this knowledge, at times it’s hard to be a strict locavore when you’re standing in the grocery store in December (after the farmer’s markets have closed until the spring), so I think of it more as a stop light. If I see something was grown locally, it’s a green light - I try to build my meals around such foods. If it was grown in the US, it’s a yellow light - I buy it if I need it. If I see it was shipped here from New Zealand, it’s a red light - I only buy it if I really need to.

Eating locally may be particularly difficult in the winter, when the options tend to be less plentiful than during the summer. Barbara Kingsolver suggests that this is the purpose of canning and freezing the bountiful foods in the summer, to sustain one through the time of cold. It is also helpful to know what is available in the wintertime, so here is a list of foods that are seasonal in the month of December:

VEGETABLES
broccoli broccolini brussels sprouts butternut squash cauliflower celery root collards fennel leeks mache potatoes (maincrop) pumpkin rutabaga salsify sweet potatoes sunchoke turnips

FRUIT & NUTS
chestnuts cranberries kiwi fruit oranges persimmon pomegranate tamarillo tangerines

MEAT
duck goose partridge pheasant quail rabbit venison

FISH & SEAFOOD
clams crab mussels oysters scallops

Also check out the web site Eat the Seasons for monthly lists of seasonal food and recipes!
http://www.eattheseasons.com/