Showing Mother Earth Some Love This Earth Day

Did you know that Earth Day started in 1970 as an effort to increase public consciousness about air and water pollution? And now, over 50 years later, over 190 countries participate in Earth Day every year. The 2021 theme is “Restore our Earth.” As our collective lives hopefully return to normal, we hope some things do not return to normal- like our pre-pandemic pollution.

During 2020, the world saw less driving and less pollution. NASA reported that global nitrogen dioxide concentrations decreased by almost 20%. NO2 is the waste from vehicle emissions and is harmful to human health. That is a significant drop in less than a year!

What is a foodprint?

Your foodprint is the environmental impact from growing, producing, transporting, and storing your food. Think about all that goes into creating a food product. Let’s take an Oreo, for example. Each of the individual ingredients is grown and transported to the factory. The Oreos are then transported to warehouses for distribution, stores for consumers, and finally to your home. Think about the gas, the raw ingredients, and the plastic produced to create that one cookie.

You can learn more about your foodprint here.

Below are a few things you can do to show the earth some love and lesson your foodprint

Use Reusable Water Bottles

Not only is it better FOR YOU not to drink from plastic water bottles, but it is also better for the environment. Each year, the United States alone uses 50 million plastic water bottles. That is an average of 13 water bottles per month per person or 156 plastic water bottles a year!

Tip: get a reusable BPA-free water bottle and use it. More places have water filling stations now than ever before.

Avoid one-time use plastics like bags, bottles, and straws

If you eat out often, get reusable utensils and straws and take them with you. Invest in some reusable grocery bags and take them with you to the store. Think of how many plastic bags you use a year from grocery shopping alone.

These efforts may seem small, but they can add up to make an enormous difference. One-time use plastics are some of the most significant contributors to landfill waste.

Eat local foods and produce that are in season

Foods grown locally have traveled less distance to get to you; therefore, buying directly from the farm or local sources uses less fuel before making it onto your plate.

It is a miracle of modern industrialism that we can eat strawberries in the winter. However, those strawberries were likely grown far away and shipped a long distance.  

The plus side of eating local is that locally grown produce will be more nutrient-dense, often less expensive, and support your local farming community.

Recycle

We all inevitably end up buying some foods with packaging. The more we recycle, the less that ends up in landfills.

Check out your local guidelines on recycling and what your available options are. Things to consider recycling include paper, plastic, glass, aluminum, and electronics.

Go meat-free- once or more a week

According to the Earthday.org Eco Food Guide, cows consume 25 pounds of feed for every one pound of beef that they produce. Earthday.org states that it takes 2,500 calories of crops to create a 100 calorie beef patty.

Even chickens, although more effective than cows, still need to eat twice as much food as the amount of meat they produce.

Also, cows use more water and produce large amounts of methane gas. According to United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, animal-produced methane accounts for 1/3 of the human-caused methane production.

People are often concerned that they will not get enough protein in their diets without meat. But the good news is that there are plenty of delicious, affordable, and nutrient-dense vegetarian protein options. By replacing a few meat meals a week with other proteins, you can significantly impact the planet’s health and your body.

Here are some vegetarian options for protein

Food	Serving Size	Protein
Tempeh	½ cup	17 grams
Tofu	½ cup	9 grams
Lentils	½ cup	9 grams
Peanut butter	2 tablespoons	9 grams
Hummus	1/3 cup	6 grams
Almonds	1 ounce	6 grams
Pumpkin seeds	1 ounce	5 grams
Quinoa	½ cup	4 grams

The upside, not only is vegetarian protein delicious; it can reduce your cardiovascular risk. One large, population-based study in Japan found that higher plant protein intake was associated with lower mortality. It also found that replacing red meat and processed meat proteins with plant proteins were associated with lower total, cancer-related, and cardiovascular disease-related mortality.

Translation:  replacing some of your meat with plant-based proteins decreases your mortality risk.

Tips for this Earth Day:

Take some time to appreciate the earth- join an Earth Day celebration, participate in a local clean-up, take a walk, go for a hike or start a garden.

Take 10 minutes today to identify where you can lesson your foodprint. Maybe that is to buy more local for some and for others it may be to recycle more. In either case, your impacts are worthwhile to the overall health of our plant.

The Bottom Line

We can all do our part to help the environment this Earth Day and every day. By making some changes to our daily habits, we can significantly impact our environment and food footprint.