Cheapeats, Inc. Blog

Cheapeats recently attended an enlightening event at the New School as part  of Fresh Week. An Evening with Anna Lappe – author of  Diet For A Hot Planet. This book discusses the climate  crisis at the end of your fork and what you can do about it.  How can my fork affect the climate? Read on and learn.

What would you guess to be the largest contributor to emissions in the atmosphere? Cars? Airplanes? Manufacturing? Wrong….it’s livestock. The methane emitted from livestock is 160x greater than humans produce. Staggering! Why? It’s the waste produced, synthetic fertilizers and farming practices that release massive amounts of carbon into the air and rob it from  the soil.

Did you know that 50% of corn  and 90% of soy produced in this country feed livestock, not people. With the focus on healthy eating, dieting and obesity, you’d think we be eating better; right? We may think we are, but not necessarily. Take for instance a Granola Bar. Many of us eat them. I know I do. It’s a  healthy snack. Boosts energy. How can this affect the climate?  The #1 ingredient in these snacks is Palm Oil. 100% of Palm Oil is produced in Malaysia and Indonesia. These fields are burned in the manufacturing process. That is a lot of carbon being released in the atmosphere.

It’s estimated by 2050 the consumption of meat in this country will increase to 465million tons. That’s staggering when you think about the effect of their carbon footprint. Am I saying we should all become Vegetarians? No. But for years, we have been sold the fallacy that without processed foods, we will go hungry. The lie must end. If we don’t reduce our carbon footprint by 2050….we’re in big trouble!!!

What can we do?

• Support sustainable farming
• Do away with industrial farms because they’re causing the loss of carbon in our soils
• Stop the processed food craze
• Encourage your local government and current administration to end Anti-trust practices in the food system

The movement – 1 year ago the Real Food Challenge  was started on campuses across the US. Their goal is to convert 20% of school food to real food by 2020. To date, 389 schools have come on board. Has yours?

You don’t have to spend more money……you just have to spend it smarter! The power is in our forks!!!!

Happiness, $25 and under.

Tags: Anna Lappe, Carbon Footprint, Climate Crisis, Diet for a Hot Planet, Fresh The Movie, Green, New School, organic, Real Food Challenge, Sustainable Farming

This entry was posted by Rosemarie on Tuesday, April 13th, 2010 at 9:42 am and is filed under Organic/Green. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.