NATHAN GE

Generally, our family. I’m not entirely sure of the cultural background of these eating practices, but from what I’ve seen most Chinese people have large platters of food that everyone shares. This is definitely unlike western dining, where most of the time each person is often served their own dish (unless it’s some potluck). This means that if some platters of food are not finished, we can always just save it for another day. Also, my parents have always taught me to put portions of food into my plate that I know I can finish. Additionally, I like to be as thrifty and resourceful as possible in every aspect of my life. This is the result of my upbringing as well as my innate desire to save and be resourceful. This basically means that I will literally eat every grain of rice off of my plate during mealtimes. 

All of this has contributed to making it easy to reduce food waste. This also means that this challenge was made a lot easier due to my pre-conditioned tendencies. 

Another factor that’s relevant to the completion of this challenge was the fact that I often skip breakfast and only eat lunch and dinner. This habit of mine became especially prevalent during quarantine, where I don’t use as much energy and require less food consumption, and my sleep schedule has resulted in skipping past breakfast time. This has led to a tendency of eating with less frequency but with larger portions. However, I am still able to consume everything I put on my plate.

The environmental impact of generally eating enough to sustain yourself and not in excess is that you aren’t wasting energy to prepare unnecessary amounts of food. Not only does this benefit me in terms of my health, I can reduce the residual biproducts of leaving food waste such as the complete waste of the energy necessary to process the foods dumped. Although I am quite the opposite of wasteful when it comes to food, this challenge has made me more cognizant and more aware of the larger impact minute personal choices can have on the world.

The garden project initially started as a project that my dad and my sister were interested in doing. However, as a part of the eco drawdown challenge, I decided to pitch in and contribute to the health of our backyard garden. In our backyard, we grow a variety of things ranging from kale and onions to herbs like basil and thyme. We have two large planter boxes lying in our backyard that contain the larger plants such as the kale and onions, and a “plant nursery” that initially housed all the various herbs we grew.

The dirt we use is sourced from the Shoreway public recycling center, where we can get free compost. Unfortunately, the pile of compost spilled all over our car when we were transporting it from the center to our home. The stains left behind will likely be stinking up our minivan for the foreseeable future.

We try to use water left over from washing rice to water our garden, as to not let water go to waste and also use the potential nutrients that rice water may have to improve the health of our plants.

Another thing we are cognizant of is not watering plants in the case of rain. We can reduce the amount of water we give our plants on rainy days, thus saving a bit of water there. 

One problem we faced during the gardening process is the presence of bugs that eat away at our kale. We played with the idea of introducing ladybugs into the garden that will sustainably curb the presence of pesky insects, but we decided that might be too much of a hassle. In the end, the bugs didn’t become too much of a problem as most of the plants survived.

Sadly, only the kale and onions survived, while the various herbs grown in the plant nursery died off before reaching full maturity. This may be due to underwatering, a lack of oxygen, or a variety of other factors; we aren’t too sure. The scale of our farming operation was definitely on the small side and was mostly done for fun. It will take a lot greater amount of effort to turn this into something that provides a substantial amount of food for the family. Nevertheless, the whole gardening process was a great learning experience that also proved to be quite therapeutic, and definitely a step in the right direction towards a more sustainable lifestyle.

These daily walks have been a great time to reflect upon the present, think about the things I’m grateful for, and take a step back from the business and stress of life to recollect my thoughts. I enjoy the peaceful and serene nature of the night and the perceptible lack of people, so I often go out to walk during the night time. I usually go around 9 or 10pm when it’s not too cold. At the start of the challenge, the levee was one of the places I would always go to for walks. The levee was the perfect place for walks due to the comfortable ocean breeze that swept in from the bay, as well as the beautiful sights of the coastline. However, as time went on, the beautiful sights that made the levee special were obscured by ugly walls. The walls are a part of a project the city is undertaking to prevent potential floods from high tides in the future. The rising sea levels pose a direct threat to my local community. Now that I think about it, the effects of climate change are truly knocking at my front without me even realizing it. The harsh realities of climate change have presented itself in the form of this ugly wall. However, it does seem that these walls will look much prettier once fully constructed. Plus, the views of the bay/estuary won’t be obscured upon construction completion, which was my main concern. In the meantime, I have just been walking around the neighborhood and enjoying the local parks that litter the area. I can still feel the breeze from the ocean sweeping through the streets, as my neighborhood is still pretty close to the levee. Throughout my experience with the challenge, I can definitely say that city planners integrated a lot of accessible and enjoyable walking spots throughout the city. The parks that litter the city are populated with lush green foliage and playgrounds. The parks are definitely a beautiful aspect of the city and are often accompanied by access to the lagoon that snakes through my city. The levee (before the construction of the wall) was also designed to specifically be walked on/biked on to get a view of the bay.

I tended to frequent walks out around my neighborhood when my workload was less as opposed to more, though it probably should have been the opposite. It usually takes only around 20 minutes to walk, and it gives me a much-needed mental reset. But I’m always locked into a bad mindset of not taking breaks such as a walk to maximize the amount of time I can work.

Overall, this challenge to go on walks has definitely been beneficial to my mental wellbeing, and it has allowed me to appreciate the beautiful city I live in.

When I practice mindfulness when eating, I'm able to interact with my family and enjoy my food more.