Eating Green
Three simple ways to join the sustainable-food trend
It’s not always easy eating green. Making a commitment to buying sustainable, ethically grown food can be complicated. It can mean interpreting confusing labels, investigating new places to buy food, and even challenging a few preconceived notions.
“We’ve lost a certain connection with the earth and each other in the past 50 or so years,” says Diane Hatz, founder and director of the Sustainable Table, a nonprofit program devoted to raising awareness about sustainable food. The idea behind the movement, according to Hatz, is to promote the notion that food is more than just something you put in your mouth three times a day. Food, she says, ought to be valued for the nourishment it provides, the way it connects people to their communities, and what it does for them on a spiritual level.
In commonsense terms, that means acknowledging that what we eat doesn’t begin and end in the supermarket aisle. How and where food is grown or raised, how it’s processed, and how it gets into your hands can have a big impact on your health, your local economy, and the environment. Here are a few ways to get started down the path to greener eating.
Step 1: Plan
There are a number of things people may not know about the food they buy and eat on a regular basis. One example is the low doses of antibiotics administered to most conventionally raised farm animals. These drugs prevent sickness in animals living in close confinement and also help them grow faster and bigger. But critics, including Hatz and Suzanne Santos, director of the Austin Farmers’ Market and former executive director of the Austin-based Sustainable Food Center, argue that antibiotics in farm animals could be adding to the problem of drug-resistant bacteria. Unfortunately, antibiotic-laden meat is often the easiest to find and the cheapest to buy.
Both Santos and Hatz say that if you want to change your diet, you have to make a plan. The best way to avoid falling back on your old habits is to get a cookbook of quick recipes, create a weekly menu, and make up a list of what you want to buy before you head to the store. That way, you can better balance what you need with how much you have to spend. For instance, planning a few simple, meat-free meals can save money that you can then spend on more expensive antibiotic- and hormone-free meat for your other meals.
Step 2: Research
In many cases, it’s difficult to find key information on food just by looking at a label. To get the facts, experts say, consumers need to be both bold and a little bit nosy. That means asking questions, and lots of them, even in places where you might think sustainable credentials would be a given, like a farmers’ market. These have increased in popularity over the past few years, but Santos says that many operators are jumping on the bandwagon. “A lot of them are thinking more about creating the atmosphere, and the number of stalls, but not thinking about what goes in them,” she explains.
Santos recommends talking to the people running the stalls and asking them about their farms: Does all the produce at the stand come from their farm? What, if any, pesticides and fertilizers are used? Is the farm certified organic? And what do they feed their animals?
Step 3: Shop
While becoming informed is the biggest factor in sustainable eating, Santos and Hatz have other tips as well.
First, eat as much locally produced food as possible. Not only does it make it easier to find out where and how your food came to be, but locally grown food doesn’t have the same fossil fuel impact because it hasn’t been shipped a long distance. In cold climates, Santos and Hatz recommend buying local produce in summer and canning or freezing it for winter.
Second, when you shop, BYOB — bring your own bag, that is. You’ll cut down on trash in landfills if you switch to reusable grocery bags.
Finally, don’t panic. You don’t have to rearrange your entire life to make a difference. Little changes can have a big impact. “Even changing 10 percent of your diet is better than no percent,” Santos says. Case in point: where you spend your money. Every dollar spent locally goes around your community an average of seven times, according to research cited by the Sustainable Food Center. Even spending a little locally can help your regional economy.
— Maggie Koerth-Baker
Organic, Naturally
One of the reasons why eating sustainably requires research is that many common grocery store buzzwords are seriously misleading. Here’s a quick look at some common terms and what they really mean.
Organic:
Organic food is grown on a farm certified by a government agency. Certified organic farms have to adhere to certain rules, including no chemical fertilizers, no hormones, and no antibiotics. But an “organic” label doesn’t mean the food was grown on a small, family farm. “Industrial organic” farms might meet the certification requirements, but they aren’t necessarily local and may or may not farm with conservation in mind.
Natural:
According to the government definition, food labeled “natural” can be only minimally processed and can’t contain artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives. But, Hatz says, there’s no verification system in place, so the “natural” label is essentially meaningless.
Grass-Fed:
A federal definition set down in November 2007 classifies animals as “grass-fed” if they ate only grass and forage after being weaned. They’re more likely to have lived outside, but, Hatz says, “forage” includes cereal crops like grain, so grass-fed animals aren’t necessarily 100 percent pasture-raised. And they aren’t necessarily free of artificial hormones or antibiotics, either. — M.K.
