Your quest to reduce energy use shouldn’t stop once you’ve sealed up a drafty house or bought a hybrid car. Your “secondary” carbon footprint is a combo of everyday choices—what you buy, reuse, recycle, and throw away—and some experts calculate that our industrial food system has the highest cumulative impact on carbon emissions and energy use. What can you do?
- Buy locally and in season from your farmers’ market. Visit www.localharvest.org to find one near you.
- Join a dairy share, beef share, or egg share from a local farm and switch to local, grass-fed, and pastured meat, chicken, eggs, milk, butter, and cheese.
- Add one more meat-free meal to your weekly menu. Meat is higher on the food chain, so it uses more energy.
- Start a garden. Simple, easy-to-grow items like herbs, lettuce, and spinach can grow in containers, inside or out, and all year long.
- Start a compost pile. Food scraps that end up in landfills create methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
~ Alison Gannett
Read more of Alison’s tips on her website at www.alisongannett.com
