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I loved this project. I hated this project. It was such a developmental, uplifting and rough time for me. I had to learn not only about sustainbility in eating but also sustainability in keeping myself accountable for the things I do in my life.
For instance, I told alot of people at my presentation today that I re-conceptualized my body as a battle ground, as a cite of protest and a starting point for sustainability. Before this project, when I thought about people hurting the environment with their actions I thought about people littering, not recycling. Now I know that eating, the very act of consuming is in itself a choice to be environmentally stable-or not. Reducing your carbon footprint is as easy as reducing the amount of meat you eat. This doesn’t mean you have to be a hardcore (hXc) vegan or even a vegetarian 100% of the time (although I think it’s completely awesome when people choose those paths.) It means you choose a meat-free dish once a day. Or you only eat meat three out of the four days a week. These efforts alone can cut your carbon footprint by 25%, reducing several tons of C02 the average American would usually eat.
Vegetarianism was easy, veganism was more difficult, and local produce was nigh impossible for me, mostly because of travel and scheduling that week before spring produce was available. And although nature.org thinks that vegans produce 72% less carbon that meat eaters, I learned that the statistic might be flawed. For instance, vegans might rely on tofu, or tempeh, or veggie burgers for their main sources of protein. These have nearly as high a carbon footprint than does anything else–they require process, packaging, shipping, refrigeration, and are sent from a location to a central warehouse and then to your local supermarket. The simple fact might be that if you’re only concerned about meat eating and C02 emissions, eating locally grown meat is the better and more sustainable choice. But as we pointed out–there are a multitude of reasons for eating or not eating meat. Some people cannot stand the cruelty done to animals. some people are worried about health. it’s all about balancing and making choice.
Those choices, however are important. To restate some statistics from an early blog post–there’s a lot at stake. 1/3 of C02 emissions comes from the food industry. 91 percent comes from methane and carbon production in farm management–this is largely factory farms and CAFOs. So yes, even eating vegetarian food cannot escape this statistic. However I am more aware of my body and my environment and how they interact with each other. I have gained a new sort of spirituality that helps me realize just how much control I have over myself and how I treat the world around me. I eat less meat, and sort of just see the world differently. It’s like a new lens in life. And I’m supremely grateful for this project and the new beginnings it’s provided me.
I have now presented my poster to the class about my window farm. Thanks to everyone that stopped by to learn about window farming. Showing my window farm to people gives me an opportunity to educate others about creative gardening and producing/buying local organic food.
I was asked many times today about what I was going to do with window garden now that the class project is over. My garden will live on so do not worry. My window farm will be moving with me to a Boy Scout summer camp that I run. There it will hang in a window in the dinning hall. With this prime location I will have around 1500 people walk by it during the summer and I am sure that many of them will stop to take a look.
The possibility of having 1500 people learn about local food is an exciting idea that I cannot turn down. Exceptionally sense most of that 1500 will be middle school kids. Teaching kids at a young age is the easiest way to make meaning life changes.
And after camp the garden is moving with me to Chicago where I hope to expand it.
I hope that many of you are think about making your own window garden, and if you do please let me know. Here are a few things that I have learned from making my own can could help you.
First, herbs are the best to plant in a window garden because many of them do not grow to big. This style of gardening is not good for large plants. Also herbs allow you to continually harvest them without completely killing the plant.
Second, do forget to water them. The bottles themselves are not very big and with that they cannot store a lot of water. I have to water my garden every two days or it will quickly dry out. I learned this the hard way and my lettuce has not fully recovered from it yet.
Last, come up with a design of your own. You could simply build one close to mine or you could be creative. Being creative with your garden makes this project such a fun to do. A good friend of mine is now making one out of old sections of plastic plumbing of different sizes. Some of the pipes even have right angles in them so he can be even more creative with the design. He is planting wild flowers in his.
Over all this has been a fantastic project. I have truly enjoyed designing and building my garden and learning about environmental issues at the same time in class.
This last weekend my window garden took a turn for the worse. I had to be out of town to finalize some post graduation plans in Chicago, where I am moving to, and while I was out of town my garden did not get watered. The red lettuce and chives both are not looking so well, but I believe that they will pull through. I have always had plants growing in my room and have seen them look worse then this before and they have always came back. I am hoping that this happens this time as well.
This does bring up a problem with my design of a window garden. The amount of soil in each bottle is small and therefore the amount of water it can hold is small as well. This means that I have to keep up with the watering or the plants will quickly die. I have been watering every other day or so, but over the weekend they went four days with out water. Just these four days made the plants look sick.
The window farming website does have some plans for building an automated watering system for those who are to busy to water everyday.
Also my last post I talked about a new question that I had come up with. I wanted to know how many trees would I have to plant to cancel out my CO2 emissions. That way I could eliminate all my CO2 emissions and be carbon neutral. Here is what I have found from reliable sources.
The average person in the United States emits 10,185lb of CO2 per year. (International Energy Agency 2009) And a tree absorbs on average 48lb of CO2 per year. (U. S. Department of Energy 2008) Which means I would have to plant 212.2 trees, a huge number but doable at the same time. Please note: This is rough average calculation with many variables not taken in to account and this is also for only one green house gas. With that said this still shows an interesting solution.
I find this to be a fun idea to play with in my head, trying to figure out if this is truly doable.
One last thing, last week I had an unexpected surprise come out of my garden. In with my red lettuce I had a foreign plant start to grow. After it got large enough I was able to identify it as a sunflower. A seed must have gotten mixed in with the potting soil. A sunflower is way to big to grow in a bottle, so I am trying to decide what to do with it. This is one of the things that I love about gardening. You never know what is going to happen.
Now unfortunately Food, Inc. did not win the Oscar for best documentary but it was nominated this past year. In this film you get a look into the beef, pork, and chicken industry. Also it informs about government policies that regulate what is and isn’t safe for us. They also talk some about Monsanto and how they have patented seeds and are going after anyone who saves their own seeds.
The documentary also follows the story of a mother who lost her two year old son to E coli after eating contaminated ground beef. The documentary tells us that some strains of E coli are a product of the beef industry, packing animals close together and feeding them corn. The company responsible for the beef did not recall the meet until 16 days after the son had passed away and it took the family three years to find out that they matched the recall from that company. Her son died in August of 2001 and she is still continuing to fight for plants to be held accountable for contaminated products. The law states that the FDA cannot shut down a plant even if they are continually sending out contaminated products. Does that seem right to anyone??
Joel Salatin who we read about in The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved makes many appearances throughout the film. You get to see how he ruins his farm and how his animals live. They also show how they butcher their chickens out in the open air which we are told is not sanitary. He says he had is chickens tested at a microbiology lab and they came back 133 cfu while those that had gone through chlorine baths averaged 3600cfu.
You can actually intern at his farm which is something I would love to be able to do. You can find out more at his farm’s website: http://www.polyfacefarms.com/
I don’t want to tell you too much about the film because I cannot do it justice in this review but I do encourage you all to see it, it has great information about the US food system. Some of these things we touched on in class and some we did not but it never hurts to hear things more than once, I’ve seen Food, Inc. three times and still find it informative. It just blows my mind to see how companies are more protected in this country than the people.
WATCH FOOD, INC I think it is a documentary that everyone should see and I recommend it to all
Hello Folks. It’s been a crazy ride since I’ve posted last and I have a feeling that my Carbon Footprint has been varying in size. The first week on my journey asked me to give up meat. That was no problem whatsoever. I absolutely love my vegetarian years; i’ve grown as a human and also a little more away from the picky eater I once was.
Perhaps a little bit of background will be helpful. My family is an average, working, middle class family. My mother is a single parent and my grandmother was the other half of the two-person parenting duo. Dinner was not really an event. It was a large portion of meat (somtimes grilled, sometimes baked, sometimes fried) veggies (my favorites were corn and green beans) and a starch (pasta, bread, potatoes, etc.) It was pretty basic. But I can still remember my family making one of my its favorites: chicken fried steak. Hand-battered, double dipped in flour and egg. My mom and my grandmother LOVED it. I hated it. Vehemently. With a passion. But, since a parent’s job is to ensure that their child eats, my grandmother (acting as parent in charge) gave me a plate with the CFSteak, mashed potatoes and corn and suggested (very persuasively) that either I ate it or I wouldn’t be able to play outside for the rest of the day. I devoured the mashed potatoes and corn, but could NOT deal with the meat. I remember taking it outside and throwing it into the neighbor’s yard. I was maybe 11. After getting rid of the evidence, I went to play on my swingset.
Fast forward a few more years. We are driving to Walt Disney World for a family vacay. We were about to stop for lunch at a fast food place, when I saw a semi drive by. The truck was carrying not a large square box filled with who-knows-what, but was carrying hundreds of chickens. HUNDREDS. packed maybe 15 layers high and 30 layers lengthwise. several to a cage. All except the lucky few on top were covered in feces. It looked like a miserable existence. I asked my mother why they were held, transported that way. She shrugged, and we stopped to eat. I couldn’t. I vowed to be vegetarian.
That, of course, did not last. When your family loves meat and dictates how, where, and when you eat (to a large extent,) vegetarianism is difficult. Not to mention the fact that the only vegetarian options at my high school were on Fridays during Lent, when the kitchen catered to the large amounts of Catholic school children. Not to mention that eating meat was natural, dammit, and American; my house in the country was surrounded by cattle farmers. If you didn’t have cattle, your land was either a) wheat or barley or b) cattle-feed. Vegetarianism was NOT an option.
College came. The dorms fed me. There were a few more vegetarian options, but I didn’t know how to pair the different veggie options to make a healthful meal. It wasn’t until I joined the K-State Debate Team that I felt comfortable really making the jump. There were atleast 6 vegetarians and two vegans (!!!!) on the team. When we went on debate trips, we would eat at healthy places where vegetarian and vegan options were abundant. I tried my first veggieburger. Hated it. So for a while I tried to eat the same meals that my mother would cook for me, but minus the meat. Mashed potatoes and corn, beans, green beans. My friends (from the debate team) slowly taught me how to eat MEALS not just sides.
One more fast forward. I LOVE veggie burgers. I love morning-star’s maple-flavored faux-sausages. I learned to love bell peppers, broccoli, celery, carrots, tofu. To this day, I still stir-fry tofu with veggies over noodles. Eating chicken pad-thai seems odd.
Here is why all of this is relevant to my project. Originally, I had two weeks that were dedicated t a) removing dairy and then b) eating completely vegan. I did both of them together. Two weeks of veganism.
One week was at my parent’s house. I love my family. When they learned I was vegetarian, they tried to accommodate me as much as possible (after poking a bit of fun, of course.) But veganism? I just didn’t want to be a burden on my parents; they shouldn’t have to do any extra work for me. And since my parents cooked me food for that week, I ate it. I tried to be as vegan as possible; it just didn’t work.
I was vegan successfully for about a week. I was hungry. Vegetarianism is awesome because you have vegetarian products that replace that protein, right next to that veggie and starch. I am not as good with the vegan options. This is because of all the skills I have attempted to hone in college, cooking is not one of them. I can write a bibliography in less than five minutes. I know how to change a tire. I know how to dress and act for an interview. But do I know how to shop for and prepare a dish from scratch? Probably not. I can boil water like a boss. I can heat up re-fried beans and Morning-Star soy crumbles to make vegetarian tacos/tostadas. But cooking? Nope. Not really. And why would I have to? My parents fed me, the dorms fed me, then the Union and/or pre-prepared/processed fed me. I know it’s not as healthy as preparing local, organic vegetables into a pasta primavera, but you win some and you lose some. I had other priorities, ones that forced me to either eat on campus or not really eat at all. So eat on campus I did.
So I was hungry for veganism. And when I was vegan, I was hungry. I also got sick during my vegan weeks. So did my debate coach, the only other vegan in my life. He, after over 10 years of being vegan, was told by his doctor that his illness was caused, in part, by poor nutrition as a vegan. I reasoned that if the vegan who has had over 10 years practice couldn’t pull this off, perhaps I couldn’t. Then I sneezed, coughed and warmed up some chicken noodle soup.
Until next time, my friends, peace.
So, my original online calculator eatlowcarbon.com has been replaced by http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/calculator/. Several reasons for this, but it’s mostly because this calculator lets me calculate my carbon footprint based on the amount of meat and animal products I consume whereas eatlowcarbon.com only had ‘sample meals’ that I could choose from—and none of them were really close to what I ate that day.
Here are some facts from www.nature.org:
Diets heavy in meat produce 24% more carbon emissions than the average American eater.
7% of greenhouse gasses are tied to food, specifically to agricultural production within the U.S.
91% of this carbon comes from methane and nitrous oxide that is produced by land, animal, and farm-vehicle management/use
And here are some super-relevant-to-my-project-facts from www.nature.org:
Veggies emit less than 42% of the average American meat-eater’s carbon footprint
Vegans produce less than 72% of the average!
Here’s a graph I’ve made charting my process, specifically tracking the carbon footprint. As you can tell, I have already divided my Carbon footprint in half–from 4.2 tons per year to 1.5.
Constraints against my potential Vegetarianism/Veganism success:
- I am a picky eater and my constantly-moving lifestyle requires me to dig fast, processed food–which I do.
- I also dislike some ‘staple’ vegetarian/vegan items like tomatoes and onions. Shocking, I know. Peppers are growing on me. I love broccoli, which is only because I serve at Applebee’s and the last time I was vegan I could only eat baked potatoes with salsa (delish!) and garlic broccoli while I worked there.
- The only tofu I like is extra-firm because I can’t handle gelatinous textures for salty, flavorful foods (I love the heck outta jello, chocolate mousse, and puddin’, however.)
- I also can’t cook beyond processed, ready-made foods. I think that my inability to cook is predicated on the fact that I haven’t really tried. Because of my lack of experience I depend on Morningstar and Boca products as substitutes for meat eating—these will likely not have a low carbon footprint for the same reasons Oreos probably don’t: processing plant matter (or chemicals), manufacturing, packaging, shipping to one central location (HyVee headquarters, etc) and then to our local business.
- I am on campus for large portions of the day, sometimes encompassing 2 out of the 3 meals. Just today, I looked up at the little analog clock and realized that I hadn’t eaten in nearly 24 hours (which probably explains my headache.)
As requested-where I’ve been buying my food
I’ve noticed that I fall in and out of patterns of vegetarian/veganism. I mean that I have certain ‘go-tos’ depending upon my dietary choices. I buy different sets of food. And, because I am constantly on campus or coming from campus, that includes fast food.
So here’s the Union’s rankings for vegetarian diets:
Panda Express—although technically they use animal based products to prepare their food (because EVERYONE does), they do have some vegetarian options. Their fried rice with mixed veggies is delicious, flavorful and filling. Or, a veggie spring rolls and steamed rice Panda Bowl is also good (and, arguably, vegan.) However, it’s not cheap—over $5 a meal kinda sucks, but that’s probably the norm for the Union.
Salsarita’s—Beans. They’re good for vegetarians. They have lotsa protein, are versatile, and are pretty delicious. Veggies can get beans, cheese, and a whole host of other delicious toppings on some nachos, in a burrito, or stuffed into tacos. Also pricey. But pretty big portions—if you go from eating meat to vegetarianism you might notice that you’re hungry. Turns out that’s because protein, specifically animal protein is ‘heavier’ and fills you up. Salsarita’s fills you up, too. Delish.
Taco Bell—Also beans. Beans and rice. Cheaper. Still pretty alright in terms of quality.
Other restaurants follow the same guidelines—‘ethnic foods’ are usually more feasible for vegetarians than ‘American’ cuisine like Chile’s or Applebee’s. Beans, Tofu, Delicious Veggies, etc
Also the Union has ala-carte items like fruit and roasted red pepper hummus and pita. Chickpeas (which is what hummus is made out of) are good for many of the same reasons as why beans are good: versatility and protein-content.
Grocery:
If you can afford it, People’s Grocery rocks face. They have bulk staple foods; local meats, cheeses and produce; and have the elusive Tofurkey around the holidays. They have lots of gluten free-foods, cruelty-free products, and lots and lots of soy products. Like I said, kinda pricey and on 17th street by Dara’s which is sorta far away.
Dillon’s has (or used to have, I’m not sure since they renovated their biz) a great aisle conveniently located ‘Vegetarian’ which has organic products and even quick-cook foods like Amy’s Organic Cheese Pizza pockets. They also have Morningstar and Boca Products in the freezer section next to breakfast foods, for some reason.
HyVee has an entire section of ‘healthful foods’ including a cold-case section with lots of different veggie foods. Even non-meat/soy-free food. And Tofutti-vegan ice cream!
Other than that-the vegetarian switch hasn’t been too bad! Probably because it’s been only a week and I was veg for a year and a half. Veganism happening now.
So I decided I wanted to wait until after the poster session to do my final post just to address some of the things I discussed with our classmates about my project. First of all Dr. Carroll asked me if I had viewed the video the matrix and I had not so I went ahead and did that and posted a link below that you all can check out if you so wish.
Let me know what you think.
The continual question I received during the poster session was in regard to my stance on meat. How do I feel about it now, after doing all the research that I have done? Things have changed … I’ve started purchasing cage free eggs, which a class member informed me about, thank you! I have also started buying antibiotic free chicken and no longer will eat anything with meat from fast food places. I know vegetarian is a better way to go but I don’t know if I can do that. I am feeling pretty guilty today though because after a night in aggieville last night I definitely had a chicken pita 
. I’m serious though about trying to be better. I think the cruelty towards the animals is inhumane and should be illegal and not to mention the huge risks we face when we consume something that was raised poorly.
My advice to everyone is to just be aware. Keep informed. Know what you are eating. Think about where it is been and envision where it is going (as in your body). There are always ways to make a difference whether it is becoming a vegetarian or eating cage free eggs. I do not believe this is a problem that is going to disappear anytime soon and I am not all about burning down factory farms or protesting or anything like this, for me it is about the little things that I can do to feel like maybe I’m making some small difference. It is all those small differences that will make a big change one day.
This post is going to cover mainly the effect of factory farming on our (human) health.
One of the newest studies right now shows that eating a plant based (vegetarian) diet can prevent a lot of very common diseases such as heart disease and diabetes (type II).
IN FACT…
“80 to 90% of all cancers, cardiovascular diseases, and other degenerative illness can be prevented, at least until very old age – simply by adopting a plant-based diet.” http://www.farmsanctuary.org/issues/factoryfarming/health/
WHY YOU ASK?
Factory farming uses many different types of growth hormones (as many of you who have been following my posts know) that can cause what they call ‘super germs’. They do have the ability to cause human death and people that eat meat may be at risk. Especially if they do not know where there meat is coming from.
Yes people mad cow disease did exisit and because of it many humans were infected by it who ate the cows that had the disease. This is just one of many examples.
There is the USDA who is supposed to be in charge to inspecting the meet that is fed to the consumers but the problem seems to be that these ‘inspections’ are just not up to par. By fixing them a lot of unwanted disease may be prevented. You have to ask yourself is it worth the money to tighten the reins and save some lives? My answer is yes!
Do you want to eat this??? Check it out…
Maybe we should go this route?
WELCOME BACK BLOGGERS…
As my project has progressed I feel like I continue to learn more and more that I never knew, which in turn leads me to believe that there are many others out there like me that do not know a lot about what is going on, on these industrial style farms. This post is going to focus mainly on the different animals that suffer from factory farming and they specifics of how they suffer and what exactly thier living conditions are. I realize up to this point I have shown pictures and videos of the animals but I have not gotten in real deep about the actual environment and that is my goal for this post.
FACT 1: First of all I think it is important to know why this happend to begin with. It was during the 1920′s when vitamins A and D were discovered. These vitamins make it possible that animals can survive without exersise and sunlight.
COWS
There are two different types of cows. Veal cows (used for meat) and dairy cows (used for milk).
Veal calves are kept in confinement for the majority of their short four month lives. They live alone, without companionship and are kept in small crates. This method of confinement is practiced to inhibit muscle growth therefore making the cows skin more tender.
Dairy cows are kept in a holding facility where they are fed and kept except for the two times a day they are let out to milk. Dairy cows are given growth hormones which can double their milk production. We are told that the cows suffer emotionally from having little to no interaction with other cows. When the cow can no longer produce milk they are sent to be slaughtered where there skin can be profitable.
FACT 2: In America almost 50% of antibiotics given are to farm animals.
CHICKENS
There are also two types of chickens, broiler chickens and layer chickens.
Broiler chickens are chickens raised for their meat. They are also given hormones which at times can cause them to way so much they can not support their own body weight therefore they can not stand. They have their beaks and feet cut off and are placed in dark rooms to prevent fighting between the birds. Their life span is ususally about seven months.
Layer Chickens are raised to lay eggs. They are crammed into what is called battery houses and their are usually about five to eight birds in a 14 square foot area. The battery cages cause deformation to their feet and their beaks are seered off at a young age to prevent fighting. When the hens have male chicks they are unwanted and suffocated in trash bags. After a laying cycle the hens are either slaughtered for deprived of food and water in order to shock them into another laying cycle.
PIGS
One thing we know about pigs is that they are social creatures and crave interaction with others. Factory farming does not allow this and because of it pigs may develop different things out of boredom for example nervous ticks or cannibalism. Pigs bred in this environment do not ever usually see daylight until they are shipped to the slaughter houses. They are kept very often in an area so small they can not even turn around.
It is really hard to read all of this and I do not think I have made one post yet that I haven’t cried writing about. They most important thing is that we let people know what is going on. Educating, I believe is the best first step in the right direction.
This information can be found at http://www.idausa.org/facts/factoryfarmfacts.html
Welcome back friends! This is my second post of my research project about factory farming. This week I focused a lot on the environment and I learned that factory farming is not only a horrific thing for the animals it is for the environment as well. When we think of farming we picture green fields where the cows graze but in actuality the majority of farms are industrialized. There is this whole idea that what farmers take from the earth they also give back. By this I mean they put there cows on the land and they feed and then the cows fertilize land its a very give and take process. This is not possible with factory farming though because of the amount of animals, lack of rotation of animals, and failure to give the land time to rest. I guess before starting this project all I really thought about were the animals but there are so many other factors involved as well.
In a sustainable farm livestock manure can be used as fertilizer for the earth but in an industrialized farm the amount of livestock produced can become a very larger problem. The pollutents can cause harsh effects to the air, water and soil that surround the farms. Unlike human waste animal waste is not sanatized. The large amounts can spill onto the land when there is to much and it is not properly disposed of, which is basically impossible to do anyway.
I learned something else I found very interesting and this is that sustainable farms mainly feed their livestock off of the land but factory farms more often feed thier animals off of grain and things of this sort. Lets look at it in these terms…
The average cow eats approximatley 30lbs of food each day!
Basically this puts a huge strain on the grain culture since the beef industry raises more than 30 million cows each year. (www.sustainabletable.org/issues/environment/) That site has a lot of information about the effects on the environment and that is where I learned the majority of what I am sharing with you this week.
Well this sucks… what can we do. I found a very cool thing called the Eat well guide where you can go and type in your zip code and it lists the places in our area where we can buy sustainable farm livestock.
Check it out: http://www.eatwellguide.org/
PLEASE WATCH THIS … IT IS DISTURBING BUT VERY EYE OPENING!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=66XBlmdFlY8
This is a picture of a factory farm and what the waste storage system looks like.
Thanks for checking my post out tune in for post 3.
