Malia Bennett

February 8th, 2020

Today I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast for my roommates and myself while the snow kept us in our room. I found that breakfast was my best friend during this challenge and by far the easiest of my three daily meals to consume without meat. A few of my favorite meatless breakfast meals were oatmeal with my daily fruit of choice, a bagel with vegan cream cheese (trader joes has this), cereal with almond milk, and hash browns. 

February 3rd, 2020

Today I put a bit more effort into my lunch by making a spring mix salad with roasted almonds, sliced strawberries, and balsamic dressing. As shallow as it may seem, I found that putting effort into making my meals while also making them more aesthetically pleasing served as motivators for this challenge. I also made consciously grocery shopping more of a priority and enjoyable activity to set myself up for success. 

February 1st, 2020

One of my meals today was a strawberry crepe for brunch at the French Market Creperie. I found that while completing this challenge the most difficult times to remain loyal to the no meat stipulation was while eating out. The best way I found to conquor this was to choose the restuarants intentionally so that I knew I would find something both appetizing and meatless within the menu. I try my best to avoid fast food, but during the challenge I uncovered a hack for when fast food is inevitable- meat in any item at Taco Bell may be substituted with black beans or potatos.

I completed my one time challenge of "Learn About & Practice Sustainable Fashion" by researching multiple materials solutions and sustainable clothing brands through social media. I have followed a few sustainable fashion accounts for a while such as Fashion Revolution that simply advocate for sustainable fashion in general and support environmentally conscious brands like Mate the Label and Everlane. The most interesting multiple material solution I encountered, however, was a company called Rareform. Rareform utilizes old, out of use billboard materials by repurposing them into fashion accessories like bags and totes. The vinyl material that billboards are created from is weather-proof and typically not recyclable. On the rareform  website, https://www.rareform.com/pages/about the company lays out how the idea was hatched and how the materials go from billboard to accessory. Additionally, there is a counter at the bottom of the page that lists how many billboards have been "rescued" by not going to landfills. At the time I am writing this, that number is 2,783,510.

21 day reflection: I actually went over the 21 day limit without even noticing. I accomplished having two meatless meals a day by setting consistency with limiting my meat consumption to only dinner. I attempted to also incorporate vegan meals when possible and even entire days without meat consumption. Overall I found this challenge to be attainable by simply setting consistency and holding myself accountable. I hope to continue this trend beyond the 21 day challenge.