Eating Less (or no) Meat is Better for the Planet

Read Time Magazine's article: "Should We All Be Vegetarians?"

There are a lot of reasons why people choose a vegetarian diet. Many people feel that a well-balanced vegetarian diet is simply healthier, and there is a lot of information to back this up. In fact, eating too much meat is far less healthy that no meat at all, and The Guardian reports that meat-eaters are at higher risk for cancer. Others object philosophically to eating animals at all, and/or the conditions and treatment of animals in slaughterhouses and factory farms. These places are not only horrible in the treatment of animals (we’ve all heard about the conditions and animals that never walk or move) – but they often use a lot of chemicals and unsanitary practices, as well as creating high levels of pollution, which are very unhealthy for the human consumers of this food.

Another reason that people eat vegetarian is the implication of meat-eating on our planet – both the earth and its people. In simple economic terms, it requires far more resources to raise and produce red meat than it does poultry; and more for poultry than fish; etc. Basically, the larger the animal the more resources it takes to produce it. It takes 10,000 kg of wheat to produce 1,000 kg of beef, which feeds 15 adults. Conversely, only 1,000 kg of wheat can directly feed 15 adults. And Americans consume 60% more meat than Europeans.

Major Anti-Green Culprits: Cars and E-Waste

I’ve talked about everyday household and personal products, and ways to go greener and healthier (while saving money) on those. Today I will talk about some of the other areas in which sustainability practices make a huge difference in our impact on the planet’s resources: Automobiles and E-waste.

Car Use

This is a big area for most of us in our everyday lives. Our gasoline consumption in the U.S. is nearly six times higher per capita than Europe, and almost 30 times higher than developing countries! While switching to a more fuel-efficient car is clearly a big step in the right direction, there are many other things I have learned to be more conscious of an incorporate into my daily routine to improve in this area. Driving habits can improve your efficiency and maintain your car longer.

Green Beauty on a Budget (with Recipes!)

Last week I wrote about ways you can make your own cleaning products, that are not only natural and much healthier for your home and family – but cost just a fraction of store-bought products also.

Well, if there was ever one area with high prices and profit margins, a 20-billion dollar industry where you can save incredible money doing it yourself, it is the beauty and skincare market. Not only are a large percentage of these products made with chemicals, sometimes tested on animals, and often unsafe for the workers in the industry (many in or from third-world countries) – it’s an industry that also charges you heftily for its products.

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I’m not going to pretend, I’m as much a sucker for some of it as the next girl. I’m often willing to splurge on feel-good, take-care items, and these sorts of products are the kinds of things I tend to pamper myself with. I’m a big fan of Origins and Burt’s Bees, so I am the last person to suggest (or be willing to) completely forego them.

The Myth of Recycling

Don’t get me wrong. Recycling isn’t a bad thing. I recycle everything I can – we all should.

But it can create a trap that we fall into, where we think that just because something can be recycled, it’s okay to buy it. We use more plastics, more cardboard, more glass, more aluminum – and feel guilt-free when we toss them all into the recycling bin.

We need to remember that there are THREE Rs, and the other two should always come before recycling whenever possible:

Reduce

Reuse

Recycle

7 Misconceptions about Plastic Recycling

Don’t let recycling lull you into a false sense of complacency so that, instead of first reducing your consumption and then reusing everything you can, you just buy more stuff as long as you can recycle it. First of all, there can be problems with recycling. Contrary to what you might think, not everything that gets put into a recycling bin necessarily gets recycled. And what does get recycled still uses a lot of energy and resources to actually recycle the material.

Greener Cleaning Practices (& Healthier Too!)

In reading up on various ways and areas of my life where I can improve my sustainability, I have been very happy to note that in the categories of work/office, electronics, health & beauty and fashion, I am pretty darn green. In household and food areas, I practice a lot of sustainable habits but have learned about so many more that can be easily incorporated.

George Frey for The New York Times

One area that was a huge concern to me, the more I read about it, was all the cleaners that we use. Did you know that, in spite of pollution, the air inside the average American home is five to ten times more toxic than the air outside? Indoor air is typically contaminated by between 20 and 150 different pollutants – most of which come from petroleum based cleaners. (I will add this to my easy Rule of P’s – avoid Plastics, individual/excessive Packaging, Processed foods, and now Petroleum based products).

These are so dangerous that the New York Times recently ran an article about it. Not only that, but they are actually less effective than those made naturally and organically. There must be a reason why S.C. Johnson & Son has recently announced that they are putting out a new version of Windex that contains vinegar instead of ammonia – but it can’t be because that and other chemicals are bad for you, can it?