We can’t all afford hybrid cars or install solar panels on our rooftops, but we can change the way we eat. In fact, food choices we make every day could be the biggest impact we have on saving the planet! So here are some of the best choices you can make to help make our planet more sustainable and efficient – because everyday should be Earth Day!
1. Put your slow cooker to use. Whereas an oven heats all the air around your food, a slow cooker heats just a small pot of food, making it the most energy-efficient way to cook dinner. According to Rodale, if you’re cooking a meal for seven hours in a slow cooker, it’ll cost you less than half of the energy cost it would take to cook the same meal in an oven for an hour.
2. Go organic. You hear it all the time, but it’s true: eating organic is healthier, and it’s also much more efficient. Organic farming uses 45 percent less energy and creates 40 percent fewer greenhouse-gas emissions than conventional framing, according to data from the Rodale Institute’s 30-year farming-system trials.
3. Stop wasting food. The average person in the U.S. wastes 1,400 calories of food each day. That’s a huge waste of food – think about all the starving people in this country – and it’s also a waste of energy. We use 185 million barrels of oil every year to grow all that food, so stop wasting it!
4. Eat eggs. Yes, eating more eggs can help save our planet. Eggs create about six times less greenhouse-gas pollution than beef, making them one of the ecofriendly animal protein sources. Choose pastured eggs when you can – According to Penn State University research and other studies, eggs from hens raised on grass pastures contain twice as much vitamin E, 2½ times more omega-3 fatty acids, 1/3 less cholesterol, ¼ less saturated fat, and 2/3 more vitamin A than standard eggs.
5. Make Mondays meatless. Jump on the meatless Monday wagon – if not for weight loss or economical reasons, for our planet. If everyone in the U.S. ate meatless one day a week, it would be the environmental equivalent of not driving 91 billion miles! Or try going vegan once a week. According to Rodale, if every family in the United States vetoed meat and cheese just one day a week, it would create the environmental benefits of taking the family car off of the road for five full weeks or of shortening everyone’s daily shower by three minutes!
