How to be an Eco-Friendly Eater

A lot of people are content to go throughout their day, eating whatever food they feel like eating, without thinking about the environmental consequences of their choices.  Those people who have concerns about protecting the environment and making the planet a better place to live, however, may wonder how they can be a more eco-friendly eater.  In reality, it is very easy to take small steps to be more environmentally conscious in your food choices.

One easy way to change your eating habits to reflect your concern for the environment is to eat more locally grown foods.  This is easy to do in places that have farmers’ markets.  Farmers’ markets are places where local farmers gather to sell the food that they have produced.  These markets are typically year round in warm states like California and Florida, but may only be available in the summer months in places like the Midwest.  In either case, these are great places to buy food that was grown in the area you live in or within just a few hundred miles.

Food that is grown several states away from you has to be transported a longer distance, using more fuel.  Also, depending on the distance it travels, it may have to be packaged differently or transported in a refrigerated truck, both of which can be more taxing on the environment than the farmer who loaded up his pickup and drove the 15 miles to the farmers’ market.  If you do not have farmers’ markets in your area, check at the grocery store for items that were grown in your state or in a neighboring state.  If products are not clearly labeled, ask your grocer which items are locally grown and choose those.

Another way to be an eco-friendly eater is to limit your consumption of animal products.  The connection between the production of meat and environmental damage is large, but many people are unaware of this.  However, it is easy to see the relationship if you imagine the processes that have to be undertaken to get the meat to your grocery store.  There needs to be land cleared to raise the animals upon.  There also needs to be a lot of electrical energy used to heat the warehouses or other areas where the animals are kept.  Further, animals raised for meat must be fed, of course, and large amounts of land are used up to produce their food.  This is land that could be used to grow food for people that is instead used to grow food for animals that are later killed for consumption.  The transportation of animals from the farms to the slaughterhouses also takes large amounts of fuel and impacts the environment.  Finally, getting the meat processed and to the grocery store has its own impact.  If you are not willing to limit your meat intake, getting your meat from a local butcher is somewhat more environmentally friendly than getting preprocessed meat at the grocery store because it has not gone through as many energy consuming processes.

Eating more fruits, vegetables, and grains is another way to be more eco-friendly in your eating.  By consuming foods in their more natural state, there is less energy required.  For example, picking apples and transporting them to a grocery store uses far less energy than sending those same apples through numerous processes to turn them into some kind of prepackaged item like applesauce or an apple fritter.

Many processed foods contain some component made from corn or soy.  These crops are subsidized by the government and produced in an overabundance, which is why they are in just about everything.  Of course these crops take a lot of energy to harvest and convert into high fructose corn syrup or soy lecithin, the form they commonly take in these products.  You will do the environment a big service if you just make food yourself using ingredients in their natural form.  It is also much better for your health, as your body is better able to digest natural foods than overly processed foods.

Another way to be an eco-friendly eater is to try to eat more organic foods.  It is true that organic food can be more expensive that non-organic food, but do not let that be a strong deterrent as many items are comparable in price.  The reason why organic food is better for the environment is that it has not been treated with harsh chemical pesticides or fertilizers.  This means that fewer chemicals are entering the air and seeping into the soil or traveling into our water sources.  The damage that chemicals can do to soil and water can be tremendous, and we all need to do our part to keep these things clean and safe.

While it may seem a bit overwhelming to do all of these steps to be a more eco-friendly eater, in reality, even if you can only adopt one or two of these principles, it will make a difference for the planet.