Katherine Reed

I want to change my behavior regarding food waste mostly because I see just how much is thrown away. I notice how I am used to grocery shopping based on planning my meals way in advance, which really just leads to wasted food when it goes bad or when I forget about it. Since moving into an apartment, the amount of trash we produce from our kitchen alone is really insane. Also, I am motivated by the lost energy and land that could be used for other purposes; I am particularly motivated by the anaerobic decomposition food waste undergoes in landfills that produces green house gases. If I reduce my food waste, through both composting and buying less, I can reduce energy consumption, land use, and GHG production, which are all important for sustainability.  

People in richer countries eat more meat because meat production costs are high, so eating meat is really only available to those who can afford it. Additionally, the supply chain to get meat out to a large number of people is usually more efficient in richer countries, making it easier for lots of people to eat lots of meat (as opposed to smaller family farms that might produce a little meat and lots of plants, which is more common in poorer countries than industrialized meat production). Eating lots of meat, particularly red meat, has poor impacts on heart health and can contribute to diseases. It also harms our environment through methane (a GHG) emissions produced by cattle farms and toxic runoffs into water sources. There are ways to eat meat sustainably, but if people in wealthy countries lower their meat consumption, lots of good could be done for the environment and for our bodies (not to mention the ethical issues concerning poor conditions in animal feed lots and industrial systems).