Food Choices as Climate Action
When climate anxiety gets the best of me, I take action through my food.
Climate anxiety and eco grief are fairly new concepts to me, but I knew I had been living with both to some extent as soon as they were offered to me in casual conversation. I had previously identified feeling eco-grief. The sight of communities across the world shredded by natural disasters has a level of injustice that is hard for me to fathom. I observe the gravity of it but I don’t see my responsibility in it. I may still double down on my recycling or waste reduction efforts for a bit, but the problem is still over there, and my renewed energy to create change isn’t sustained.
In contrast, when I acknowledge that climate anxiety is a phenomenon I experience I am forced to face the fact that I am afraid of how a warming planet impacts my life. This includes comprehending a future loss of privileges that have been afforded to me and my family. I fear for my natural environment, my local community, and I know that these fears impact my decision to have children.
The American Psychological Association describes climate anxiety as a chronic fear of environmental doom. I was 15 when I saw An Inconvenient Truth. More recently, mere weeks before my 30th birthday I lived through a record-breaking heatwave that effectively torched large swaths of our local berry production. If I live with a chronic fear of environmental doom, it is due in large part to the fact that I have been exposed to a steady swath of apocalyptic journalism for half of my life.
Yes, among other emotions, I am anxious.
While I do believe that strengthening my psychological resilience through therapy or self-care helps equip me for change, in my heart I know this crisis isn’t about me. Whether I like it or not, I have to recognize that we are all deeply interconnected. Therefore, my daily actions directly impact the well-being of others. I see an opportunity to engage in slow, life-affirming, change by utilizing my food choices as a form of climate action.
1) Understanding Food Waste
It is generally understood that in the United States we waste 30-40% of our food. This matters because when food breaks down in the landfill it creates methane, a gas that is 4x more potent than CO2. Understanding our own household’s food waste, how it is disposed of, and creating strategies to reduce our waste are all direct climate actions.
Recently I had the privilege of serving on a panel of food waste reduction experts for the Toward Zero Waste Program of Sustainable Connections. If you are interested in exploring this idea watch this workshop:
Cooking demos with waste reduction tips: 9m 13s. Q&A with the experts starts at 30m.
2) Mindful Meat and Dairy Consumption
You don’t have to be vegan or vegetarian to examine your relationship to meat and dairy. Small actions such as using non-dairy milk, buying humanly produced organic eggs, and reducing meat consumption have a cumulative impact. This is again related to methane gas, as well as the amount of water that is required to raise animals for food. I will explore the topic of meat consumption and the rising collective interest in plant-based foods in future TSR articles.
3) Eating Seasonally and Buying Local
This last action item is the foundation of my farm-to-table lifestyle and one of my main sources of optimism. A lot of times you will see eating locally presented as a way to reduce the impact of food transportation. I understand this idea conceptually but that isn’t my motivation for taking this action.
When I focus on working with seasonal produce, and locally produced food, I am rooted in the community and I am making food choices based on connection. Connection to people, place, culture, and our changing environment. From this place, I have an increased sense of purpose. I am more committed to eating a plant-based diet, and I am less likely to let food go to waste because I know how hard my neighbor worked to get it to me.
Whatsmore, approaching my food from this angle helps me shift my internal dialogue away from guilt traps set by the diet industry, or my own climate anxiety. Instead of feeling like I should eat better, I find resistance, power, and resilience in eating food grown in my area. And I find justice and peace in sharing food for free when I have produced an abundance.
So in spite of it all, this is where I find my joy.
And this is where I find the motivation to continue the work of teaching, listening, and facilitating better relationships to food.
“Pull a thread here and you’ll find it’s attached to the rest of the world.”
― Nadeem Aslam, The Wasted Vigil