Eating sustainable. What does that even mean? When you tell people to consider a more sustainable diet, the only thing they hear is that you want to forbit them to eat their steak. Yes, sustainable eating is also about meat consumption (which together with the milk industry actually makes one tenth of the yearly Co2 emissions in Germany). So, eating vegetarian or even vegan, does help our planet a lot. If you just check out the selection in Albert Heijn or Jumbo, it is huge! And I feel like it is growing every months. From chicken to burger to fish there is almost nothing you cannot find a vegan alternative for. And even better: They do have great nutrients and are not more expensive than actual animal products. However, this does not mean that you shouldn’t be allowed to eat your steak anymore. So, if you love meat so much, there is still something you can do to carry out a more sustainable diet. Below I listed 3 things that do help our environment and might even help your wallet.
1) Bring cotton bags.
Did you know that in 2019 Australia had the words largest use of single-use plastic (bags, coffee cups, straws, etc.)? They use 59 kg of single single-use plastic per capita per year (Statista, 2020). That is unnecessary and can be avoided to easily. Instead of buying a plastic bag in the grocery story everytime just bring your own reusable cotton bag. Not only environmentally friendly but also cheaper for your budget.
2) Buy local
Yes, I love to eat my mango yoghurt for breakfast and my avocado toast for dinner. But did you know that for one kilogram of avocados 1000 litres of water are needed? That is 1000 litres of water for approximately 3 avocados. Still, in comparison to one kilogram of beef, which needs 15.000 litres of water, the avocado still looks good. However, for one kilogram of tomatoes only 180 litres are used. So maybe we can switch our avocado salad topping to a tomato topping from time to time.
3) Food sharing
I already talked about this in another blog post. However, it is a very important issue I do not get tired to address. 35% of all wasted food is thrown away by supermarkets and households, although it is perfectly fine for eating. 35%! The next time before you throw something out because you don’t want to eat it or because you are going on vacation check with your roomies, friends or neighbours if they would like to take it. Additionally, there are several groups on Facebook where you can switch food and save it from being thrown away. To good to go is also a very nice app where restaurants, bakeries and supermarkets post their unused products, which can be picked up for a very cheap price at the end of the day.
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