Eco-Friendly Tips During Social Distancing: Diet and Food Habits
- ywacc.ngo
- Apr 5, 2020
- 2 min read
While most of society, save for our essential workers- a HUGE shoutout goes to them- are self-isolating at home over the course of the next couple months because of the COVID-19 outbreak, this leaves us to question how we can help our environment from the comfort of our own homes. In the upcoming weeks, we hope to provide you with some positive news and positive action you can take during these times of great uncertainty.
If you haven’t had the chance to check out our last article about the direct effects on climate change stemming from this pandemic, we strongly urge you to read that brief article before this one. The previous article will provide some context and visualisation about global climate change in relation to this period of self-isolation. To sum it up very loosely and quickly: Fossil fuel emissions are rapidly decreasing because of dwindling economic, industrial, and transportation sectors. Large countries such as China and the Unites States are seeing decreases in greenhouse gas emissions that may have a large enough impact on this YEAR’S emission output. It’s barely April. Anyways, on to the ways you, as an individual, can help the Earth from home! This article will specifically focus on diet and food habits.
With trying to comply with social distancing guidelines and growing fears, many customers are starting to buy groceries online. And while this option is completely understandable, especially if an individual is considered to be at a higher risk during this outbreak, there are ways to be “smarter” and more eco-friendly while shopping. For example, when purchasing snacks or vegetables online, try to buy foods that are not individually packaged. This can yield to a large amount of wasted plastic, and a large amount of wasted energy used to package the food. An example that instantly comes to mind are pre-made salad kits. These easy kits usually have lettuce, cheese, croutons, and dressing all separately packaged. A more eco-friendly option is to buy these ingredients in larger quantities and separately, so you can make as many salads as you want, while consuming the same, or even lower amount of plastic.
Speaking of salads, another way you can help out is by limiting your red meat consumption. Why might you ask? Cows in particular, produce methane due to methanogens in their intestinal tract and stomach. When cows excrete, they release this methane along with feces. It is estimated that one cow can produce about 70-120 kilograms of methane a year (Time for Change). Other meats such as fish and poultry have a much lower negative impact on the environment, and still provide the same nourishment. Even better nuts and beans are even less damaging to the planet!
And while this one may be obvious, when preparing food or washing your hands, turn off the faucet when it is not needed. You waste about 6 liters of water on average by not turning off the tap (Waterwise). This adds up quickly over the course of a day, a week, a population, a country, etc… This isn’t to say don’t wash your hands frequently, PLEASE WASH YOUR HANDS, but just turn the tap off when scrubbing with soap.
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