Lindsay Kester

Like almost everyone I know, I got a lot of plants during quarantine. Like 40 (ish- there are seeds growing now that I'm not sure how to count). I started with the basics, like herbs and cacti, and now I'm starting to grow more food, like tomatoes, and prettier, more complicated things,  like flowers. It's been really cool to learn more about soil and what's native to LA, less cool to deal with gnats (they live in the top layer of soil and are so annoying), and super fun to fill my bathtub with dirt and repot plants. I even have overalls! 
Through gardening (planting? I'm not sure... I don't have a physical garden, just a lot of pots), I've felt more connected to the physical space I'm living in, both in terms of my apartment (so green!!) and the biome my apartment inhabits. My roommates and I go hiking more now, and I try to classify different kinds of plants and guess where they're from. 
There's also a large community on platforms like Facebook, where I talk to people about my plants and what's going on with them and we trade secrets and pots.
I don't pretend to be a farmer by any means. I do think that building pride for where you live, whether that be through supporting eco-conscious farming or annoying your roommates with seeds, brings people together. My roommates are proud of my plants too- they talk about them in their Zoom calls, and one of them used them as their "fun fact" in their law school interview (and she got in!!). When you spend time thinking critically about what might make your environment better, you develop a connection to it that inspires more action and in turn makes your enviornment even healthier. It's a really positive, self-affirming cycle.         

I've talked about it a lot in other posts, but I fly a lot. I live in Boston and go to school in California, for one, my family likes to vacation, for a second, and I have relatives all over the US, for a third. I've recently started to come to terms with the impact of all of these flights on the environment and my personal culpability in continuing to take them. 
I did some research and found that trains are less polluting than planes since they hold more people and therefore have fewer emissions per person. In the future, I'll start taking trains down to see my family in DC instead of flying for that reason.
Interestingly, planes pollute less than cars when traveling the same distance, which was something I didn't know. I think the best way to reduce emissions then would be to travel less, which, in the age of Zoom, is totally viable. Instead of going on vacations to places like Mexico or Florida, I'm going to take shorter trips to places close to home. This past weekend, my roommates and I went to Santa Barbara and hiked to hot springs, which was really cool! I didn't realize that they existed so close to my apartment (only a 1.5-hour drive).   It was really great to be able to explore a place that was really close to home and yet still had some really amazing geological activity. Definitely something I'll be thinking about more in the future!           

I love my daily walks! I started taking them during quarantine and was able to explore my neighborhood at home and at school. I like to alternate between running and walking/hiking. At school, I walk to Holmby Park, which is way behind Hilgard Ave, and there's this house that has this massive cow sculpture-thing in the front yard. It's kind of hidden behind a hedge, so I never would have noticed it if I didn't walk past it pretty much every day. It's wicked funny!!
I've enjoyed getting fresh air and getting out of my apartment/house, which was great since I spent a lot of time there doing classes and work and things. It's nice to be alone and listen to music and forget about things for a while. At home, I like walking to the reservoir near my house and taking my dog around it. My dog really benefitted from the walks as well- he likes the fresh air and running around just as much as I do, and I think it helps his hips not hurt. 
Infrastrucutre changes that might have made my walks more enjoyable are sidewalks at home and streetlights at both school and home. I like to walk at odd times, at night or whenever I have a moment, and it's hard to do that when you can't see or it's a little scary. I know that street lights cause light pollution, though, so I'm wondering if there's a way to mitigate that and still be able to see. I think my main concern is safety- at home, I can carry a flashlight, since I basically live in the middle of the woods and there are never really any people there, but at school I don't know how to fix that.       

I calculated my carbon footprint to be 4.37 tons of CO2 every month, which is insane. My roommates and I definitely were shocked by that. As a part of this class, I'd already realized the impact of my flights home and back and decided to travel home less, since it's so bad for the planet. Unfortunately, since we live in an apartment, we can't switch to more renewable energy sources (our landlord Does Not Care), but we can work on using less- turning on the AC/heat less, that kind of thing. We'd actually already started doing that, since our heat bill is kind of insane when we do use it. Our apartment is from the 1960s (we think), so it's pretty poorly insulated and has two different AC systems, one of which only cools the living room for some reason. We're going to continue to reduce our heating and cooling to try and reduce our footprint. I've also decided to try and reduce my meat intake and replace those products with more vegetables and sustainably-grown meats. 
Additionally, one of my roommates decided to take a road trip across the country in a hybrid car instead of flying home at the end of the year, which will hopefully reduce her emissions. I'm going to go home once instead of three times and stay for longer. My family is also considering buying a new car and donating our old one, so I'm going to push towards a hybrid car instead of a standard one. 
It was definitely super jarring to realize that my apartment produces more CO2 than the average American household- I felt like we were pretty good about being eco-friendly, but I guess we aren't. In the future, I'm going to try and reduce our emissions even more so we get closer to that average value and then hopefully far below it.                  

This is a big part of eating keto- focusing mainly on fruits and veggies and not carbohydrates. One of my main concerns with the low-carb diet was the increase in my meat intake, which isn't very sustainable. I thought that I would have to drastically increase the amount of meat I was eating every day in order to make up for my lack of bread, rice, and other base foods. However, I've found that I don't have to increase my meat intake all that much, if at all, if I focus my meals around large servings of vegetables. I've started cooking whole bell peppers and onions, tried lots of new things with frozen broccoli, and made mashed cauliflower (delicious). I cook with olive and vegetable oils, which give me the calories I need, so I don't have to go to meats. Although I still eat meat, I've been able to transition to the keto diet without drastically increasing the quantity, which I'm pretty proud of.

As a part of this challenge, I hope to be able to learn more about the kinds of meat options that are available to me and the difference in sustainability between each. I don't think I'll be able to go vegetarian or vegan, at least for this challenge, since I do best when I eat lots of oils and few carbs, but I'd like to slowly decrease my meat intake or, at the very least, eat more sustainably when I do eat meat.

I've also found a lot of really great keto veggie-based recipes that I'll link below. They're a really great way to reduce dependence on sugars and carbohydrates and, after a 2-day transition period in which you do not feel great, make you feel a ton better (or at least me).

Recipies:
Indian-Spiced Cauliflower "Rice": https://thefoodcharlatan.com/indian-spiced-cauliflower-rice/ 

Garlic Mashed Cauliflower: https://www.thecookierookie.com/rosemary-garlic-mashed-cauliflower/

Cauliflower "Mashed Potatoes" w/ Spinach: https://lowcarbyum.com/mashed-cauliflower-with-spinach/

One of the things I've learned in college is how important it is to pay attention when you're eating. It's too easy to make eating a secondary, background activity I do while doing homework or watching videos. However, when I eat mindfully, I tend to both eat less and eat healthier. I also feel better after I eat- I've realized recently that my mood is really, really affected by how I feel physically, a large part of which is not feeling too full. I find it easier to be nicer, funnier, and happier in general when I eat enough to make me feel good, not too full, and paying attention when I'm eating plays a huge role in that.   
I've recently gone back to eating keto (low-carb) and last night I remembered how different an eating experience that is. I made chicken, black beans, and vegetables, at about the same portion size I would have if I made rice, and ate the whole thing while talking to my roommates. Afterward, I felt awful- super sick and gross, and it was hard for me to be light when I went to hang out with my friends. I distinctly remember thinking "this is a lot of food" while I was eating, and then I was distracted by what my roommate was saying and I forgot about it. I unconsciously finished the bowl. Had I been practicing mindful eating, I might have stopped and saved some for later, instead of feeling sick that night. It's one of the things I'm working on in 2021. That's also the same reason I started doing keto again- I love sugar (I secretly have the palate of a kindergartener), but it makes me feel sick, and I'm not me when I feel sick (like the Snickers commercial, but not feeling hungry). Practicing keto and mindful eating help me feel more like myself.