I started looking at things and wondering what kind of world am I leaving my children and their children’s children? Simple question right? Just don’t over-think it. If you do, it will scare the crap out of you. Because the answers are not so simple. There are so many things you can do if you could afford to, right? Go solar, buy electric cars. Walk everywhere, take the bus, things like that. But there is only so much one person can do.
So I thought, maybe break it down to things that I can do. Which makes it a bit easier to work on, right?
So I looked over the things I do right now, today. I then thought of something so simple that it doesn’t even seem like it would make a difference, but it does.
So I thought about something everyone has to do, and maybe there was a way there to do something for the betterment of the world as a whole.
And so here we go! Let’s break it down —
Where do you shop? I mean, where do you personally shop every day for your food? Do you go to a *huge box market store or do you buy from a **local smaller store? I added at the bottom what I mean between the two different types of stores. Depending on the size of the store, will also showcase the food waste that happens. But that isn’t what I am talking about in this post.
Even if you think your actions won’t make a difference, collectively, they can. Starting with your choices of eating fresh and organic vegetables if at all possible.
Yes, that is what I said, lets talk vegetables!
Fun fact:
Depending on where you live, the average food item travels about 1,500 miles before it arrives at your local food market. When you buy locally produced food items, like from a local farmers’ market or a store that stocks local produce, those food items travel on average about 50 plus miles. Now think about this, that means that if your food comes from elsewhere?
It’s using a good thirty times more energy and that can add more emissions and CO2 into the atmosphere. All that traveling is adding to our collective carbon footprint. So it could mean, that head of lettuce, which is a simple item, it might have used up more energy in traveling that what is in the lettuce!
Not everyone has the option to live in a state like I do that grows a lot of food for the rest of the country, but you can still try to find something local in your area that helps. Every area in the states has something that is local to that area.
Now, talking about lettuce.
Fun fact: Did you know that iceberg lettuce is not known for its nutritional value, it does contain some important vitamins and minerals? If you buy it fresh and use it within a few days. It’s that same stuff you find at fast food restaurants.
I don’t buy it because it doesn’t have enough important vitamins and minerals in it for me. Please, if possible, do not feed it to your pets that eat greens, either. If it doesn’t have enough for you, it won’t have enough for them either.
So what about other vegetables? My son got told something interesting about nutritional value in foods. If you can buy fresh, do it, if you can buy organic even better. BUT, and he is not alone in this, if you can not afford fresh or organic then buy frozen.
But stay away from canned foods because there is nothing left in that can of vegetables worth eating.
Personally, I haven’t eaten canned vegetables in years. But when I was a child, we used to canned our own vegetables that we grew, so they at least still had something left good in them. Less processing of your food overall is a good thing.
Do you have a favorite bell pepper? I do and it’s not green.
Fun Fact about bell peppers!
Red peppers pack the most nutrition, because they’ve been on the vine longest. Green peppers are harvested earlier, before they have a chance to turn yellow, orange, and then red. Compared to green bell peppers, the red ones have almost 11 times more beta-carotene and 1.5 times more vitamin C.
So what can you do to help make things a better place? Watch what you buy, if you can buy organic do it, if you want more local grown foods at your food markets, till the management.
I say that, when I go to my local Belair, their area for organic foods is tiny compare to Sprouts.
If you want to know where your food is grown, ask! Doing something so simple as watching what you buy in your basic foods such as vegetables makes a difference.
Breaking things down to the most simple of things, shows that even just buying that one item that is from your area, or less than 50 miles from anywhere else, can in turn make a tiny difference. If we all did something tiny, that can add up to a lot of good in the world.
What do you think, do you think that just by changing what you buy food wise, even if its just one vegetable will make a difference?
Let me know in the comments below!
(*Huge box market store would be a place like a Walmart that has everything, or a Target that has started selling frozen goods along with clothes etc.)
(**A Local smaller store might be a chain but sells only food items and things like your bath and body products.)
I saw this interesting article about iceberg lettuce I thought I would add so you could check it out.
Nutritional benefits of iceberg lettuce
