Emma Kelly

Sustainable Bruins

POINTS TOTAL

0 TODAY
0 THIS WEEK
157 TOTAL

participant impact

UP TO

70

minutes

being mindful

Emma's actions

Action Track: Healing & Renewal

Eat Mindfully

I will eat all of my meals without distractions, e.g., phone, computer, TV, or newspaper.

COMPLETED 4
DAILY ACTIONS

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Keep Track of Wasted Food

Reduced Food Waste

I will keep a daily log of food I throw away during Drawdown Ecochallenge, either because it went bad before I ate it, I put too much on my plate, or it was scraps from food preparation.

COMPLETED 2
DAILY ACTIONS

Participant Feed

Reflection, encouragement, and relationship building are all important aspects of getting a new habit to stick.
Share thoughts, encourage others, and reinforce positive new habits on the Feed.

To get started, share “your why.” Why did you join the challenge and choose the actions you did?

Emma Kelly 3/01/2022 10:06 AM

Sustainability of ensure

This class has made me think about the sustainability of my diet. I mentioned in a previous post that I rely on Ensure (a brand of nutrition shake) for a significant portion of my nutrition, and I was wondering about the sustainability of this.

My first concern was about plastic waste. Each 8oz serving of Ensure comes in a plastic bottle, and I can’t even imagine the number of bottles I’ve used over the years. Thankfully, the bottles are recyclable, and my dad has drilled the habit of washing the bottles before recycling them into me. I’m doing what I can to recycle the bottles properly, so I can only hope that the waste I can create is actually recycled rather than piled up somewhere.

Another major concern that I had was the sustainability of the Ensure itself. I initially thought that it was milk-based, but that turned out not to be true. Apparently, it contains “milk protein concentrate” instead. I had to look up what this was, and it’s made by filtering whole milk. I think this is done to provide protein while keeping the product safe for lactose intolerant people, but in this specific case, it doesn’t make the product more sustainable, as it still requires the harvest of milk from cows. I don’t know enough about food manufacturing biotechnology to know if something similar to milk proteins can be grown from stem cells or plant-based products, but that may be a necessary innovation in the future.

The process of manufacturing and shipping Ensure also creates pollution. Raising cows is necessary to gain milk, and that creates methane emissions. The product is manufactured by a large nutrition company, likely in many large factories that create pollution. Finally, I get Ensure shipped to me (and stores get it shipped to them), and the plane and truck travel also creates pollution.

In the future, I may have to consider alternative forms of supplemental nutrition. Plant-based pills or tablets could work, or there may be a revolutionary plant-based shake that contains the same amount of calories, vitamins, and nutrients as Ensure (that works better than Soylent).

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- Elizabeth Trueman 3/01/2022 11:58 AM
  
  Reading this post made me think a lot about protein powder, which I have also been questioning recently because I have typically been using a whey protein powder, which comes from cow's milk. The first thought that came to mind was that this can't be good for the environment and I should probably start using a plant-based protein powder, but as I was looking into it I found out that whey actually comes from the byproducts of manufacturing milk products such as cheese, and the liquid whey byproduct contains a high level of protein which can be turned into protein powder. Before this practice, the whey that came from the cheese-making process was actually dumped into sewers, waterways, or agricultural land, which is "175-times more damaging to the environment than dumping raw, untreated human sewage" (Food Unfolded). So, the fact that whey protein comes from milk does not actually mean that it is unsustainable, especially when considering that this waste would otherwise be dumped into the environment to create even further negative effects.
  
  However, the refinement process for turning the whey by-product of cheese into protein powder is very energy intensive and the demand for it is increasing, so it might not be the most sustainable protein supplement option for the future if it outgrows the demand for cheese production. In that case, there would be an increased demand for milk production, which we all know contributes highly to CO2 emissions.
  
  Even though plant-based proteins have about the same environmental impact as whey proteins because of all of the resources that go into farming these protein sources, they do not require milk production, which means that they could be more sustainable in the future as the demand for protein supplements goes up.
  
  So, as an alternative to Ensure, you could maybe consider even a whey protein powder supplement, which usually comes in a container with 20+ servings (depending on how much you use at once) and that could significantly reduce your plastic waste! Though you might have to find some other supplements to get the other nutritional benefits that Ensure offers (which I haven't done too much research about) so I'm not sure if that would be too many steps for the level of convenience that you're looking for.
  
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REFLECTION QUESTION
Action Track: Healing & Renewal Eat Mindfully

Mindful eating is healthier for us than eating with distractions. How does your eating experience differ when practicing mindfulness?

Emma Kelly 2/19/2022 3:26 PM

I’ve been participating in the mindful eating challenge since we started Ecochallenge and it’s become a habit of mine. Because my diet is so unvaried (see my first post), I didn’t think much about my food as I was eating it. I’ve never been one to truly appreciate food; I have my select few foods that I can eat and enjoy, but I’ve never seen eating as an activity to be enjoyed, only a means by which to gain sustenance. Eating mindfully has changed that marginally.

Back at home, my meals typically went as such: Breakfast = drink in 30 seconds, lunch = eat on couch alone while looking out the window, dinner = eat with my dad while we watch TV. The only meal in which I regularly had distractions was dinner, and that was because I had family with me. Since moving to college, my breakfast routine has stayed the same, but my lunch and dinner routines have changed dramatically. I started the year by listening to music or podcasts while I ate; I get my food at the Study and that place is loud and crowded, so I need something playing in my ears while I’m in there in order to prevent too much anxiety. I usually just kept my earbuds in while I ate whether I went outside or stayed there, and I didn’t think much of it.

Since the start of the quarter, I’ve started eating exclusively in my dorm room (mostly because of the new variant), and the walk from the Study to my building gives me time to wind down and prepare for my meal. As soon as I get back to my room, I take my earbuds out, clear some space on my desk, and start eating. I can definitely say that eating alone without any distractions has made me much calmer, and having the knowledge that I’m participating in this challenge has caused me to think about my food more. Now, while I eat, it always crosses my mind that I have access to food that I can comfortably eat despite my issues, and I try to actively enjoy the flavor in each bite. I now see meals as distinct events in my day, and the time I spend eating has become time for me to unwind, for my brain to take a break from studying and worrying about college life.

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Emma Kelly 2/12/2022 5:17 PM

Food waste and chickens

This post isn’t really talking about my habits as much as it’s talking about my dad’s. Some background: my parents decided to get chickens in September of 2020, and what started with 3 hens has turned into close to 20 chickens. My dad is the one who takes care of them because he’s home most often and he’s also the one who cooks in our house. He absolutely abhors food waste, and although his motivations for reducing it aren’t solely because of climate change (reducing food waste has always been principle for him), his habits are useful.

Our family of doesn’t produce an obscenely large amount of food waste to begin with (though we could definitely reduce our plastic waste), and there are multiple reasons for that. I mentioned in a previous post that my diet is limited, and I made most of my food at home prior to moving down here. Over the years, we’ve found out exactly how much to buy and when, and how big to make my portions, so I rarely produce waste outside of some grated cheese and meat pieces. Because my dad does the cooking and grocery shopping, he essentially has full control over the food waste we create, and he’s learned over time how much he and my mom can eat in a meal as well as what he can make that will be good left over. They’ll eat leftovers for lunch, reducing our waste.

The waste our family usually ends up with usually consists of apple cores, cheese rinds, small pieces of meat, egg components (I like to bake, so sometimes I just use egg whites) and bits of bread. My dad, wanting to do something with this waste, looked up food that chickens can eat. After finding this information, he started asking us to give our waste to him so that he could feed it to the chickens. As it turns out, most of the waste we produce is healthy for chickens, and because we have so many birds, they can go through a lot of food.

Sometimes my brother will just throw an apple core (sans seeds) out into the backyards and the chickens will just go nuts for it. Most of the time, my dad compiles the waste and puts it in a food processor in order to create a consistency that’s close to the feed that he buys for them. Then he’ll put it in bowls and give it to the chickens outside. Another time, we had half a bag of old pancake mix in our pantry, so he mixed the food waste mush with the pancake batter to make “cakes” for the chickens. He made a bunch of these and stored them in the freezer, and the chickens loved them.

I guess the moral of this story is to not buy or cook more than you can eat and to utilize your waste for good when you can. Always do your research before feeding your food to pets!

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Emma Kelly 1/30/2022 2:57 PM

Secondhand Clothing

When I first made this account and I was choosing from challenges to take part in, the only one I was able to mark as “already done” was the one about secondhand/sustainable clothing. With rare exceptions, I haven’t participated in fast fashion or bought new clothes in a few years. Most of my clothes come from Depop (an app that serves as a platform for selling secondhand clothes), my mom’s closet, or my local thrift store.

I started doing this mostly because of convenience. My hometown is small and attracts a lot of tourists, so all of the clothing stores are “boutiques” that sell $200 jeans, $400 cardigans, $90 t-shirts, etc. There aren’t any general clothing stores like Target, Forever 21, or Ross unless you drive for half an hour, so buying reasonably priced clothes required one of my parents to take a good chunk of time out of their day to drive me to and from the next town over. Buying from the thrift store that’s a mile from my house, ordering online, or wearing clothes that were too small for my mom was much easier. Additionally, I found that it was much easier to find clothes that fit my style, or better yet, very specific items I wanted, when shopping online or at a thrift store. It made me feel much more confident about my wardrobe. Finally, doing this is a massive money saver!

When I first started shopping like this, sustainability was not what I had in mind. As I learned more over the years, I became grateful that this is a habit I had already developed. The fast fashion industry produces a very high amount of emissions and companies often treat their garment workers inhumanely, so I try my hardest to give them as little financial support as possible (donating to causes that help garment workers directly is a great alternative form of financial support!).

Buying or borrowing clothes secondhand from local sources is much more sustainable than ordering online, but online ordering from Depop is often the most convenient option. I love it because I’m giving money to an individual person and receiving a fantastic secondhand clothing item in exchange, but the fact exists that the shipping of packages creates emissions. Now that I live in LA, an area where many sellers (including many UCLA students!) are located, it may be possible to arrange COVID-safe in-person handoffs.

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Emma Kelly 1/24/2022 12:54 PM

Food waste and ARFID

(ARFID = Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. You can read about it here if you’d like [https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/learn/by-eating-disorder/arfid] but tl;dr it’s an eating disorder that severely limits my diet that I’ve been struggling with for ~15 years.)

This post will be acting as my reflection on the food waste log challenge as well as a general reflection of the sustainability of my diet. Food has always been a bit of a sensitive topic for me, and I’ve been thinking about my eating habits more than ever since I moved down here in September, as this is the first time I’ve ever lived on my own. Most of my focus has been on my caloric and nutritional intake, but I’ve never given much thought to the amount of food waste I create until now.

This challenge has shown me that I really don’t produce much food waste, and I think it’s because I’ve streamlined how I eat, for lack of a better term. My diet has pretty much consisted of the same three staple foods and a few snacks for over a decade now, so I’ve had time to learn exactly how much constitutes a “meal” for me, so I rarely ever take portion sizes that are too large for me to finish. For example: since I live on The Hill, I mostly live off of pizzas from The Study, and thankfully their size is perfect for me, so I always eat the whole thing (including the crust). The only waste that is produced from those is the cardboard box, which is compostable! Even when I made pizzas at home, I rarely ever produced any food waste because my dad and I knew how much dough to portion out. Any waste that I did create was fed to our chickens (and I’ll be posting about that soon!). Occasionally I would grate too much cheese before I put it on the pizza, but again, it would go to the chickens.

Slightly more concerning is the waste that results from the nutrition shakes I drink daily. I drink their entire volume, so there isn’t really any “food” waste, but unfortunately, the shakes come in plastic containers. Thankfully, they’re recyclable if you wash them out, which I always make sure to do. I’m probably going to write a whole post on the sustainability of nutrition shakes alone.

Thinking about sustainable foods and food waste has caused me to think about how I’ll approach future treatment of my disorder. When the time comes, maybe I’ll advocate for the foods in exposure therapy to be more sustainable than the meat, cheese, and general dairy products I eat every day. I’ve accepted that I can’t change anything about my diet on my own, but perhaps with professional help, I’ll be able to decrease the carbon footprint of my diet.

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Emma Kelly 1/06/2022 3:09 PM

Just a test, I hope you all can see this!

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