First Week: I kinda did it?

Hi, I'm Nat and this is my blog for APES. I had to do a blog to document how I am trying to be more sustainable and to do that, I chose to be a vegetarian and only eat local vegetables. I would like to become vegetarian because I tend to eat a lot of meat when compared to vegetables and that meat than more energy to be prepared than vegetables. When looking at my ecological footprint (which I found using this), if I kept with my current diet, it would take 3 earths to sustain my lifestyle but if I became vegetarian, it would cut it down to 2.5 earths. In fact, food production is the cause of 25% of greenhouse emissions (Plumer, 2016), and even contributing a bit to lessen it could help the efforts of reducing global warming. If everyone were to have a plant-based diet, greenhouse gases emissions would even be reduced by 70% (Fabiano, n.d.). Also, cows happen to produce a lot of methane (70-120 kg per year), a greenhouse gas which makes a 23 times more negative effect on earth than CO2 (“Are cows the cause of global warming?” n.d.). 




I also chose this topic out of reducing waste, driving, etc. because I do not throw everything in the trash, I typically do not generate a lot of waste because I recycle and compost. I also need to carpool and take the bus because I cannot drive. Though the biggest portion of the greenhouse gases I create come from driving because my job is located 14 miles away from my house, it is not logical for me quit my job for the project and I cannot move it closer to me. Since I am limited in what I can do, I will also consistently compost and make sure to finish my food to reduce waste because 96% of food waste just goes into landfills and get incinerated (“How Does Recycling Reduce Waste?”, 2017). Composting is a solution to reducing greenhouse gases because less would be burnt up and there would be less travel needed to take it to a landfill.

Technically, I was vegetarian my first week, but I did not entirely eat local vegetables. When I went grocery shopping, I forgot to look for labels that said it was locally farmed. I also went out to eat and I ordered vegetarian food, but I have no idea where their vegetables came from. So I did half of it?



Also finding or preparing vegetarian food that seems appealing was so difficult for me. I am a picky eater and I have always been. I can list more vegetables I hate than I like, and honestly, I think that was the biggest barrier that prevented me from being vegetarian. But since watching Food, Inc., I learned that livestock was just pumped with antibiotics which is not only unhealthy for them but for me. I felt that I had to make gradual changes to be healthier. First, I stopped eating beef and scarcely ate pork, and now I have decided to just cut out meat completely. With help from my parents, I have successfully managed to be a vegetarian and now I just have to be more aware of what I am eating. 

Honestly, my biggest incentive for doing this is eating meat on the weekends (I know, I coped out, but change needs to be gradual). I can look forward to the reward of eating sushi, braised duck, chicken pho, etc. As time pasts though, I hope I can completely be a vegetarian.

References:

1. Plumer, Brad. “Going Vegetarian Can Cut Your Food Carbon Footprint in Half.” Vox.com, Vox Media, 13 June 2016, www.vox.com/2014/7/2/5865109/study-going-vegetarian-could-cut-your-food-carbon-footprint-in-half.
2. Fabiano, Jennifer. “New York, NY.” AccuWeather.com, www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/how-plant-based-diets-can-help-reduce-greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-70-percent/70004227.
3. “Are Cows the Cause of Global Warming?” Time for Change, timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-meat-methane-CO2.
4. “How Does Recycling Reduce Waste?” Ecology Recycling, 30 Mar. 2017, ecoparts.com/how-does-recycling-reduce-waste/.